321–330 of 336 posts
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You can pick that up pretty easily and most do when they start interviewing for BigCorp jobs. Feel like I had to comment since I'm self taught and I just read "Java Concurrency in Practice". :D
Java Concurrency in practice doesn't tell you that at the kernel level what is the difference between a process and a thread.
I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…
> Now, you should definitely get a CS degree or similar if you want to be a programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable. I agree completely. As a dropout, I've had people bother me asking how they should go about a career in tech, and I will tell them unambigously "for the love of god, please go to school". S…
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> Now, you should definitely get a CS degree or similar if you want to be a programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable. I agree completely. As a dropout, I've had people bother me asking how they should go about a career in tech, and I will tell them unambigously "for the love of god, please go to school". S…
What blind spots? Algorithms 101 etc?
I know enough algorithm stuff to pass a lot of whiteboard interviews (and I certainly know a lot more now than I did during that anecdote), but I'm not sure I could write a min-heap or merge sort without looking a bunch of stuff up first. I don't think I'm stupid, it's just that I don't typically write explicit merge sorts or min-heaps in day-to-day code, and it hasn't been sexy enough for me to write my own, but I do think having an understanding of the mechanics is useful and important.
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> Now, you should definitely get a CS degree or similar if you want to be a programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable. I agree completely. As a dropout, I've had people bother me asking how they should go about a career in tech, and I will tell them unambigously "for the love of god, please go to school". S…
> Being self-taught is fun, but without credentials you end up having to work at companies that are willing to take chances, and as a result of that these companies have a propensity towards going bankrupt, or being run by scumbags who will run away with all the investor money (true story). Systems Engineering is what you want my friend. Companies are totally willing to be adventurous in their hiring when staffing ro…
FP has been academic for most of its life, but until semi-recently they didn't teach it much in undergrad. My interest in it more or less coincided with the advent of MapReduce and as a result suddenly FP is all the rage, which worked out well for me.
I guess that would be the advice I could caveat my previous comment with; if you decide to not go to school, try and find a current blind-spot in the current education system and fill that.
How do you know someone doesn't have a CS degree? They'll tell you. You're right: Nobody cares you don't have a degree. It's not impressive, it is just normal. What I have a problem with is the huge chip on people's shoulders about "not having a degree" and insisting on dissing anyone who chose to go a different route. I have a CS degree, I went to school on a scholarship, did not have these massive loans and "wasted…
Aside from single-row pulls (and even still), should someone that doesn't understand basic big-O be allowed to write any code that accesses a database?
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Sorry, but do you read your own comments out loud? This reeks of a kind if snobbery, just not the type you're snobby against.
Yeah people always drive by with this exact comment. My writing style comes off this way sometimes, I can't control how you interpret my comments. It's a social media post, not a great American novel. Oh no my social media comment was read as "smarmy" by some internet drone. Yawn
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> Now, you should definitely get a CS degree or similar if you want to be a programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable. I agree completely. As a dropout, I've had people bother me asking how they should go about a career in tech, and I will tell them unambigously "for the love of god, please go to school". S…
I'm on the opposite side. If anyone asks me if they should go to school, do a bootcamp or learn by yourself I always tell them that "don't take my word for it but I'd personally never go to school to learn and get job as a programmer if that's what you want". Seeing as I've "made it" so to speak coming from a another field, without any kind of degree whatsoever, with no prior work experience in IT, I personally don't…
You have to ask yourself what would be more effective: 4 years in college (spend $170k) or spend 4 years learning on your own (free), working on open source projects (free), and/or getting an entry level job (earn 120k or more)?
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I'm on the opposite side. If anyone asks me if they should go to school, do a bootcamp or learn by yourself I always tell them that "don't take my word for it but I'd personally never go to school to learn and get job as a programmer if that's what you want". Seeing as I've "made it" so to speak coming from a another field, without any kind of degree whatsoever, with no prior work experience in IT, I personally don't…
The average annual out-of-state cost for a bachelor program in Computer Science is $41,992, with an estimated average four year degree total cost of $167,968. You have to ask yourself what would be more effective: 4 years in college (spend $170k) or spend 4 years learning on your own (free), working on open source projects (free), and/or getting an entry level job (earn 120k or more)?
Also, why the constraint of "out of state" tuition? In-state tuition for CUNY schools is ~$7,000/year. 4 X 7,000 = ~$28,000. Is that a lot of money? Sure, but it's less than my first year's salary as a dropout, even without your inflated numbers.
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> Being self-taught is fun, but without credentials you end up having to work at companies that are willing to take chances, and as a result of that these companies have a propensity towards going bankrupt, or being run by scumbags who will run away with all the investor money (true story). Systems Engineering is what you want my friend. Companies are totally willing to be adventurous in their hiring when staffing ro…
In my case I kind of fell into functional programming for similar reasons. FP has been academic for most of its life, but until semi-recently they didn't teach it much in undergrad. My interest in it more or less coincided with the advent of MapReduce and as a result suddenly FP is all the rage, which worked out well for me. I guess that would be the advice I could caveat my previous comment with; if you decide to no…
Please note the SRE book has been raising awareness of these facts with the public, so the opportunity window is likely to shrink over time as more people try to get in.
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The average annual out-of-state cost for a bachelor program in Computer Science is $41,992, with an estimated average four year degree total cost of $167,968. You have to ask yourself what would be more effective: 4 years in college (spend $170k) or spend 4 years learning on your own (free), working on open source projects (free), and/or getting an entry level job (earn 120k or more)?
I don't know what entry-level job for a dropout is going to pay 120k/year; my first full-time job as a dropout paid 35k/year (in 2011). Granted, this was Orlando, FL, not Silicon Valley, but even still I have a hard time believing that the average entry-level salary is that high. Also, why the constraint of "out of state" tuition? In-state tuition for CUNY schools is ~$7,000/year. 4 X 7,000 = ~$28,000. Is that a lot…
I mean ideally before you entered school you should have had some type of idea about programming. I know many people who started writing code very early but even if that wasn't you you should have at least gave it a shot before you dedicated a major to it right?
Therein lies the problem, if you're intelligent enough to start learning on your own, at what point does the opportunity cost of college outweigh the benefit? If you don't have the initiative or desire to start on your own, then you probably won't make it very far in this field anyway because it requires constant learning and experimenting on your own.
I guess that's why so many companies look for "self-starters"