I'm self-taught, but the thing about being self-taught is that I enjoy learning. Not like whatever some random person says "I enjoy learning" in a job interview, but actually enjoy it such that I've taught myself proficiency in a few different fields. One of the things I decided early on was that I didn't like the thing that is always implied when people say "self-taught" and so over the years I've procured the services of 300-400-level and postgrad tutors of the fields I'm interested in (CS, math, and molecular bio) to help "fill in the holes". It's admittedly a bit weird approaching someone to tutor you without actually being enrolled somewhere, and of course you need to be located near a university, but this has been so helpful for me that I highly recommend this to any of my fellow autodidacts. If you do a little shopping, you can find amazing tutors that won't cost very much at all (and I dunno if it's normal to tip tutors, but I'm a big tipper in general and this has always paid big dividends).
No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
291–300 of 480 posts
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem with being self taught, at least in my experience, is that you end up being very strong in whatever areas it is that interests you This is absolutely key. One of the main advantages of a solid undergraduate curriculum is that it forces you to work your way through things that are important, but don't interest you as much. And this path is designed and supported by people with a much better broad view of…
Another way of putting this: a primary function of a curriculum - university or otherwise - is to convert unknown unknowns (things you don't know exist) into known unknowns (things you are aware of but not fully versed in) and known knowns (things you fully grok). This is why we shouldn't replace college with nothing: this is an important function.
Self-study isn't exactly nothing. I do find that there are a lot of people, especially web developers, who don't understand a lot of the basics, or even the language they're using.
I got into development from doing design work, also self taught back in the 90's. I wanted to do something... spent a very rapid weekend learning JS from a very large book, then applied what I needed the next monday. Spent the next weekend finishing that book and the next month swallowing three other large books on the subject (two more on JS, one on HTML). From there was VB5 then Access & VBA... then I started working as a developer. From there I learned more about databases and data structures, dabbled in C/C++ then circled around to VB6 when it came out. From there around the end of 2001 (after 9/11) I was unemployed and no jobs to be found. While crashing at a friend's house I learned C# with the command line compiler and another large book (didn't have VS). Since then more databases and db types, more C# and when it came out Node.js (had done a lot of classic ASP in JS along the way too).
I spent about 5 years working in eLearning, writing simulations of systems for learning/training as well as courseware. Really enjoyed that time in my life as I was constantly taking in domain knowledge as well as a very varied environment. Unfortunately after a while all the context switching and constant intake took a toll and I took a few more boring jobs doing corporate/banking work.
In any case, you'd be surprised how much you can learn without a formal education, or anything really structured at all. To this day I tend to take in new stuff rapidly and get bored once I've figured out the hard parts. Currently working on learning Rust and Kubernetes, short break on rust as the async syntax gets implemented and settles in.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#293I'm 39 years into a coding career with no CS degree. But as a compulsive auto-didact (probably a common syndrome among HN readers) it hasn't been a barrier. Self-learning is a continual, daily requirement for coders. If you can continue your education as needed for this job you probably also have the skills and interest to learn from scratch. I studied the same books and did the same exercises as my brother the CS ma…
I'm in a similar situation. Dropped out of uni because it bored me, easily got a dev job (I was really lucky), worked for years as a developer, and then an architect. I eventually did study part time for a degree, mainly out of belief that it might help with future career opportunities, but also because I might enjoy it. I got a 1st, with honours. TBH, the only part I truely enjoyed was the final project. The rest wa…
My degree never required me to read a single academic paper
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#294I have a religious studies degree. I wonder if it’s prepared me better than a CS degree for the actual work I do. What did I learn with my RELS degree? Hermeneutics— understanding ancient texts written by lots of different authors in their original historical contexts, often which has been deeply redacted over time. Anyone who’s worked on any production code can see the benefit of being trained in that kind of thinki…
"understanding ancient texts written by lots of different authors in their original historical contexts, often which has been deeply redacted over time"
That's brilliant and obviously useful for software engineers. Don't forget that you've probably also studied holy wars in considerable depth, too.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#295I'm an engineer. No CS degree. I coded for fun on various side projects from 2006-2012. I didn't consider myself very good. I worked at a couple startups from 2012-2013. During that time, I became very proficient in Coffeescript and a couple popular frontend frameworks. I was very productive in terms of pumping out lines of code (that somehow resulted in a working product). However, I didn't know how to write a for l…
I'm self-taught since age 16. I've been able to write a for- loop since age 16. Maybe it helps that I'm self taught in a pre-google, pre-stackoverflow world. Any beginning programming book will teach for-loops. I do have gaps in my knowledge but if I lose internet access I can still be productive. I mostly google for how to optimize when some API is slow or remind myself some method name. I just wanted to pipe up bec…
> (e.g. looping through an array every time you want an item with id=x instead of just using a hashtable)
Huh, I had almost the exact same experience with senior devs here - they were checking if elements were in a (huge) list in nested loops, instead of using a set. Switching brought the runtime from around 2 hours to 2 minutes.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it depends on the person and the experience. It's easy to say that a particular course was helpful, because it often is. But what's the opportunity cost? What other things didn't you learn because of all that time learning about, say, OS schedulers? Also, it assumes that you have access to a very high quality education. In lots of cases, the teaching might be mediocre (perhaps even at elite universities that…
Yes, nothing is perfect. But in general, it is hard to be a good guide to yourself in a new area. You can do it, but it is a skill that needs to be developed and most people don't have it (or rather, they typically have the depth-first part but not the breadth-first part, if that makes sense). I wasn't even talking about the course quality (which as you note, is very variable) but about the curriculum. One thing you…
As mentioned in another comment for this post, Cracking the Code Interview is probably a good place to start in terms of reviewing some key concepts, assuming you don't have a CS degree and are largely self taught.
Of course given the libraries and systems already available, you don't practically need a lot of this knowledge, but it does help. When certain portions of an application just don't perform well, or when you hit really weird side effects of race conditions on static properties etc. I think it's also important to know the language and tools that you are working with as well as possible. It's not always possible to know everything, but you should probably read and complete at least one book on the language you are using. You can hack away in any given language for years. But until you've actually read cover to cover on a comprehensive book, you won't necessarily understand some concepts, or better still you will learn how the language does something for you, that you've been doing the hard way.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
CS is more than abstract theory. It gives you a foundation that you otherwise are unlikely to get. Self-taught means learning things useful for your existing job or things you find interesting. I'm work almost exclusively on the frontend, but my CS degree gave me enough foundation that I'm fairly familiar with compilers (I wrote one in college for a required course). I don't necessarily enjoy writing compilers. But t…
> But the fact remains that I can write a compiler. I can program in C or C++. I do understand pointers. None of this may hold any real value, but I wouldn't be able to do any of them if not for the degree. I liked your initial point, but the argument weakens... People absolutely have learned all the above things (and very well), on their own, outside of a CS degree, and I bet you could've.
and many people throughout history have also learned math on their own, this doesn't devalue the worth of a math degree.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#298I had been a graphic:web designer since I was 14 years old. I taught myself Photoshop and Dreamweaver and became proficient with creating layouts with frames, tables, and of course eventually css.
I graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy where I was focused on logical systems. I recall one of my favorite professors being intrigued to know whether I could program and disappointed when I confessed that I only did the design side of web development.
I of course had a strong interest in code, having gone through interactive online python tutorials but I wasn’t able to make a the leap into becoming a developer.
The wall, I realized, was my lack of knowledge in the unix command line. Once I learned about bash, ssh, and setting up basic web servers, my learning skyrocketed.
With a background in logical systems, I was able to grasp the model of computing very rapidly. While I cannot claim to be advanced in algorithms or data structures, I feel comfortable being able to develop solutions that work.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#299I'm an engineer. No CS degree. I coded for fun on various side projects from 2006-2012. I didn't consider myself very good. I worked at a couple startups from 2012-2013. During that time, I became very proficient in Coffeescript and a couple popular frontend frameworks. I was very productive in terms of pumping out lines of code (that somehow resulted in a working product). However, I didn't know how to write a for l…
But didn't you read the core docs for the language, for loops are one of the basic idioms.
I think a lot of people learn a given language by hacking away at something they either want to create of modify. For example, in web development, I'd say most developers haven't ever read a cover to cover book on JavaScript.
I've tended to take the opposite approach, read first so I can at least grasp what I need to look for, then start applying. This of course is a mixed bag for rapidly changing/evolving tech and newer languages.
Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
#300I'm an engineer. No CS degree. I coded for fun on various side projects from 2006-2012. I didn't consider myself very good. I worked at a couple startups from 2012-2013. During that time, I became very proficient in Coffeescript and a couple popular frontend frameworks. I was very productive in terms of pumping out lines of code (that somehow resulted in a working product). However, I didn't know how to write a for l…
Right on! Plenty of people can teach themselves to code without a university education. But the degree gives you a broad exposure to parts of CS that you may never explore as a self-taught developer. And it gives employers confidence that you have the skillset to handle whatever they throw at you.
I've met people with Masters degrees who couldn't reason themselves out of a paper bag. It's not a guarantee.