I see bootcamps as one of the few viable options to get a previously inexperienced person into a position where they&#x27;re able to take on a software apprenticeship. I may be grossly simplifying things, but it feels to me like a trade such as plumbing or gas fitting can be picked up on the job.<p>Software development requires a pretty extensive grounding in the basics just to know what you&#x27;re looking at when someone shows you new techniques - to stretch my already tenuous metaphor even further, most people at least know how to remove a spanner from a toolbox and which end to hold it. I&#x27;m not sure the same can be said of opening a terminal.<p>As for the discrimination against apprenticeships as being a lesser thing than the default route of school -&gt; college -&gt; university, that&#x27;s a wider issue that needs addressing, and I don&#x27;t think its going to be helped by inventing some new name for the same thing, especially in the software industry. I also took the vocational route in, and I don&#x27;t think its ever put me at a disadvantage (if anything it means I have three years more professional experience than my peers). Most of the software developers I know studied unrelated subjects at university anyway.