Need some advice (longish post)

Hi. I think there are definite benefits to either route.

I was mostly self taught for a while. I took various random computer courses, and spent a lot of time finding and following tutorials online and reading different books. I got myself to a pretty decent level, but at least for me, there was only so far I could go on my own that way. The things I found and pursued, I got good at. The main problem was I often was missing important things, and without someone to help point it out, I had no idea what these huge knowledge gaps were. For example, I have a fairly solid foundation in HTML and CSS. But I am just now learning about things like Bootstap or Foundation, and SASS and LESS. These are super helpful things to know about, but they never came up in my own studying. Learning about them even briefly in a bootcamp gave me a huge boost on my programming speed.

No bootcamp can teach you everything, but there are some that cover more ground than others. Different ones will have different focuses. The one I am at is a little more "full stack" than a lot of others I saw. It doesn't go as in depth in every topic as more focused bootcamps, but I learn enough about so many different topics that I feel very comfortable going deeper into them as needed, or branching out further into other topics not covered. This was a good fit for me, because I don't always have great focus, and this gave me a solid path and great resources. If I had a specific interest before I started, I might have picked a more focused one that went more into that topic.

I don't think any bootcamp can stand fully on its own and teach you everything that you will need to know, but a good one can give you the resources to get where you want to be. I find web and development to be a field that encourages the "perpetual student". You will be studying and learning new tricks and languages indefinitely. The field changes so fast and so constantly, that really is the only way to stay in it. A bootcamp can give you a great leg up to get into the field, but you will have to do your own studying anyways.

Hopefully that makes some sense and gives you another opinion to consider.

I can't speak from experience regarding bootcamps, but a couple things to consider:

1. How much programming experience do you already have? If you're literally starting from scratch, there can be an overwhelming amount of information out there. When you "don't know what you don't know", it can waste alot of time when you could otherwise be guided with a starting point and some direction. The bootcamps would give you that.

2. How disciplined are you to learn something hard? There can be a tendency when doing self study, to gloss over topics sometimes and think to yourself 'oh yea I get that' and move on to the next thing, when you really don't get it as well as you think you do. Again, a bootcamp (or any formal education) would force you to work through things that you might otherwise skip over.

If you need to learn the basics, you could always take a programming course or two through a community college as well. Shouldn't be more than a few hundred dollars and would hopefully drill the concepts in better than self study, but for less cost than a bootcamp.

A portfolio is important, but make sure you understand what you did. If you just follow along a tutorial and make a web app, you probably still won't be very good at it on your own. Work through things more than once. See how far you can get without looking for help and relying on the tutorial the next time.

I'm a mix of formal education and self taught. I majored in mechanical engineering and happened to need to hack up some stuff in VBA at my job. I got interested enough in programming that I ended up taking the post bachelor certificate program in CS through NC State, which was distance education. It cost me a few thousand, but it really challenged me and gave me a good grounding in object oriented programming, unit testing, data structures, algorithms, etc. Of course I don't remember everything but I can google something and fill in the gaps myself if needed. I got a job in corporate IT at a big payroll company. I ended up here to learn web design/development because I eventually realized I'd rather pick scraps out of a dumpster than find myself in the cubicle hell of enterprise development ever again. No offense to those who enjoy it, not my thing though.

That's a very interesting path you both took. I certainly feel similar in that I feel like I am learning a lot but also don't know the key things that I'm missing. Do you think I would be able to fill in these gaps with books? Or do you believe it's imperative that I learn through bootcamp/formal education guidance? Also, I don't intend to be one of those people who simply follows along in the browser, I intend to apply the knowledge I learn in personal projects, lookup what I don't know and then later go back and do a new/similar project where hopefully I won't need to reference backup material anymore (anymore than a developer already does anyways).

I think the gaps are definitely something you can fill in with your own study. The hard part (at least for me) is figuring out what all of those knowledge gaps are.

The internet is a great place. It has huge amounts of information, sometimes too much. There are so many resources out there, it can be difficult to find quality ones. If you know people in the field, they might be able to help guide your self study enough that if you have the discipline for it, you could easily get away with being fully self taught.