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No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

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Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#311

Post by jshowa3 »

eloff wrote: post #249
jshowa3 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you've claimed that you made substantial strides in algorithms that nobody else has supposedly done. Why not get a free PhD out of the deal? If anything, you can show it to a professor and they should be able to recognize it. After all, you could be advancing the field directly. Honestly, if you think writing a two to three page paper is "a lot of effort", I doubt you've done what you've claimed.

You overestimate the value of a paper. It's worth approximately $0. But would cost maybe a week of time or about $6000 if you only count what I can sell my time for. Terrible deal.

Yet your ideas could get you millions in publicity, fame, etc. to spend literally one week to advance the field. The fact that you actually argue against this is laughable, not to mention incredibly selfish.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#312

Post by jshowa3 »

plorntus wrote: post #261
jshowa3 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. Not to mention, having a degree opens up a lot of opportunities in case you ever want to leave the field. Many people get sick of coding after doing it a while due to its highly repetitive nature. Having a degree essentially gives you a pass to enter a myriad of fields that still require one.

I'm not sure that makes complete sense. I don't have a degree in CS as I was self taught and actually bothered to follow online courses and read documentation. If I get sick of coding and want to move elsewhere I still have the option to go to university. I don't see why you would want to get a degree on the off chance you wont end up liking the job and want to go into a different field. In my situation I learned how…

It's also called burn out. Often times you will spend years slaving over one program, making improvements and changes for different cases while simultaneously maintaining it, installing it, documenting it.

After years and years of this, 8 hours, 5 days a week, it gets really monotonous.

You'll thank yourself when you think maybe I can get into journalism, or HR, or accounting, or any X-degree field at a different company without even having to take more college because you already went.

There's also bad universities, you went to a bad one or you didn't continue far enough past general ed.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#313

Post by bpchaps »

asdfman123 wrote: post #301
boblebricoleur wrote: post #90

Since these articles seem to be putting a cash value on the word "success" (or at the very least an instagram buzz value), I would point that IMHO, most of this success comes from people skill. You can have a degree or not, even bad developpers can hop from one job to another, making more and more money in the process, given they're good enough to manipulate the recruiters/clients into hiring them. Making money does…

>Congratulations, you're making money by manipulating someone into giving you their money. Awesome ! Thanks for playing, please leave. It's not manipulation. It's always a sales proposition, but you're either doing it well or you're doing it poorly. Obviously, there is no external, impartial arbiter of what makes a "good" programmer (or products, or services). There is only perception. I used to drift around but I've…

I think an undertone point might be that sales is manipulation.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#314

Post by cr0sh »

methodover wrote: post #277

I 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…

I just posted some rambling thoughts in this thread about not having a CS degree (or any real degree) and being successful as a self-taught software engineer.

I briefly mentioned how my non-formal studies of religion and philosophy have helped to inform me - mainly in the context of "machine learning".

Your thoughts about how such studies apply to CS in general, though, are interesting. I noted that there are extreme overlaps between CS and many, many other areas of study that I believe both informs and is informed by those areas (whether known consciously or not).

We may actually be doing a disservice to ourselves (and perhaps for the world) by having (though rightly, I suppose) tying Computer Science so tightly with that of Mathematics.

Of course, that could just mean that mathematics also in turn informs and is informed by those subjects, I suppose...? Which is arguably true from what I understand of mathematics and the history of mathematics!

I guess, though, is what I am getting at is that we - humanity that is - have somewhat "enclosed" CS as a subset or adjunct of mathematics. Many don't seem to understand or "see" that so many other subjects and topics are involved. Not having that understanding may be hindering our advancement (both in CS and perhaps even as a species).

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#315

Post by arendtio »

methodover wrote: post #277

I 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…

> I had no trouble understanding object oriented programming

Indeed, Object-Oriented Programming is harder to learn for programmers who have experience with other languages already (no pun intended) ;-)

When you know a language like C/C++/Java and you learn about OOP you think you understand, but in fact, you don't. So while functional programming was probably the easiest course for me in university, it took me 1,5 semesters to actually understand OOP. In the end, it is not that complicated, it is just that you have to think more on the meta-level than on the implementation-level and I think, for someone who doesn't have access to the implementation-level, it is easier because it doesn't get in the way.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#316

Post by ColanR »

jhall1468 wrote: post #256
trustyhank wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a self taught developer I can say your point assumes self teaching is all about following your interests. This is simply not true. Self teaching is a combination of following your interests and figuring out your areas of weakness and attacking them. Part of my self learning involves browsing college degree requirements or graduate programs to identify must know topics, I learn them regardless if I have a particula…

My point assumes people bias their learning towards their interests. That isn't an opinion, that's just human nature. That's not to say you can't learn things that don't interest you, but if you aren't going to do it formally you certainly have to be driven by filling those gaps and most people aren't. Learning to think outside the box and learning about specific specialties that you don't find interesting aren't eve…

It sounds like you're speaking for yourself more than for anybody else.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#317

Post by daveFNbuck »

hirundo wrote: post #9

I'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…

> Not everyone can learn coding without externally imposed structure.

That's actually not what a CS degree is primarily about. You learn to code in maybe the first 2 or 3 classes. After that, it's assumed that you can translate ideas into code and you start learning about different areas of computer science.

If you just need to learn to code for a job, there are bootcamps that can teach you that in a fraction of the time and cost.

> But those who can't probably have an ongoing problem in keeping up with the state of the art.

Personally, I wasn't able to learn to code in any meaningful way before college. I had tried to learn from books and online sources but never got beyond basic scripting. After working my way through a bachelor's degree and PhD, I don't have much trouble keeping up with the state of the art now.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#318

Post by ColanR »

thanatropism wrote: post #276
oneplane wrote: post #99

It's fun when people assume a CS Degree means you are a developer. Practically all development is self-taught, a CS degree is only handy for those moments where you dig into some abstract theory, which in most development jobs hardly ever happens. You mostly spend (or waste) time on tools, frameworks and interaction (both with humans and other systems). Lots of common development is rather mundane compared to all the…

Effectively a "hard" degree is an IQ test. General cognitive skills exist and they're especially useful in software development. ITT people are focusing too hard on the content of a CS program and too little on the more general goals of an undergraduate degree: - expose you to multiple fields of knowledge while focusing on a main thread - help you develop generic thinking skills that should translate to a variety of…

> signalling to the world that you have the chops and the work ethic to go through with a major project with many frustrating stepping stone

i.e., hazing.

Re: No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers

#320

Post by alexandec »

methodover wrote: post #277

I 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…

My philosophy degree has been extremely helpful throughout my software engineering career, for many of the same reasons. Clear, concise writing is crucial in code reviews, documentation, product requirements documents, and all sorts of ad hoc communication (Slack, emails, wiki comments, Jira cards, etc). This is doubly true for remote work.

Just like writing code, written communication is a difficult skill requiring lots of practice and feedback. A liberal arts degree provides that in spades!

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