If your friend only wants to pay a little, a subscription to codeschool.com is also worthwhile. There an annual subscription costs about $174, but it is also often reduced or there are free courses.

Both are too far from my bed where I can learn, read, share, test, probe and develop faster and easier. A plus, university courses are available from my bed too... ;)

I think that statement is rather dismissive of universities. If a university teaches you aging tech, perhaps that isn't the best university.

Good university teaches you engineering techniques, problems solving, and possible cutting edge research topics (that often isn't used in industry yet), if you get to work along in your professor's research labs.

I think you want become a "Coder", perhaps bootcamp can do it, then you can pick up engineering techniques on the way.

Wow, I'm surprised, I'm going to go against the grain here. I have been hiring 10-20 developers per year for the last 10-15 years and, while I continue to interview bootcamp grads, not a single one has successfully made it through our interview process. The things that they seem to be missing are: design patterns, working with floating point numbers, and data normalization. I also look for computational geometry which most college grads have - though unrelated to CS. To be fair, only data normalization was taught in my BS program, but I learned the others on the side while in college. Yes, these could be taught to new people coming in, but why bother when I can pick up people from one of the 4 local universities that are already well versed.

$100,000 is a lot of money. There are college/university options which cost way less than that. Personally I wouldn't do a boot camp but my cousin did it and found it useful.

I think a balanced view would be helpful. One can go to a bootcamp, and use the money from junior positions to save up and go for a CS degree 2-3 years down the line.

The degree can then even be obtained while doing part-time work.

As someone not from the US (or Western world), I value my degree because it makes getting visas and work permits much easier.

I think both bootcamps and degrees can be helpful, but I would honestly suggest going with neither of them. I have never attended a formal coding class or formal bootcamp, but before and after school I've been able to learn Javascript (including React and jQuery), Python, and more without paying a single dime. How did I do it? I just do online courses!

In my opinion, unless you're doing complex programming like bare-metal coding, working with neural networks (even this is debatable), OS development, or something requiring lots of training, online and free courses are by far the best route.

Advantages of using free online courses:

• You can go at your own pace
• You can always stay at the cutting edge of technology just by reading Docs online
• You can build your resume by creating projects and adding them to your portfolio
• And, best of all, it's completely free!

Some of my favorite online course platforms:

• Codecademy
• Free Code Camp

To sum up: I think that, if newcomers want to gain the basic skills to get a job, bootcamps and universities are both good choices. But, I'd highly recommend just learning on their own!

The best way to get success in anything is to start early with a definite goal in mind and then focus on that while working in mission mode. Any industry require relevant people, relevant are those who are in business not someone who is still in school learning how to do things. Which school teach hacking for example and produced great hackers, it is an art better learnt through practice and one doesn't reach to success overnight anywhere, everyone has to start from somewhere. If you don't start early, someone will pick that opportunity and by the time you reach to that level you become hire-able, the person already would be more experienced than you. My suggestion, pick a course which could help you lend in a job, may be at junior level, it would be your ability after that which will decide how quickly you reach at the top. Let other study in university, while you would have already got the return of your investment and more by the time they finish.

If I could turn back the hands of time, I would have favored boot camps 100 times over school - such a waste of time!

I am finishing my bootcamp in a few weeks and I am already interviewing for jobs. Based on what I've heard so far, a lot of companies are just as interested in bootcampers. They are willing to teach the stack their company uses and are more interested in your willingness to learn. I have only had one person point out that the ad for the job stated that they are looking for someone with a four year degree. All of the other jobs I am applying for say the same thing, but apparently some companies do want that degree. That being said I've been on four interviews and have two follow up interviews next week! $5,000 and a year of time will probably start you out at $55,000 a year. Sounds like a good investment to me! I vote for bootcamp!