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What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

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Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#21

Post by agentultra »

This is a most frustrating and poignant question.

I am a self-taught programmer. That being said, I'm not lacking in any desire or ability to teach myself. In fact I am quite active about it and not just in programming. Sitting on my bookshelf is a current set of AoCP and the companion, Concrete Mathematics. I keep journals of my thoughts, progress, and notes about excercises. I converse with knowledgable people on usenet and irc. I build things to know how they work.

On the other hand, I can understand why such a question is important. Someone new to programming might simply not know what questions to ask or where to go once they've finished the tutorials. Or perhaps they just reach the limits of their knowledge and hit a road block.

However, there are lots of people who load this question with a lot of FUD about self-taught programmers. I just want to let them all in on a little secret: hardly anyone cares about your degree. It's an investment in an institution and doesn't grant you any knowledge that you couldn't gain on your own with a little work and self-discipline. That being said, such an investment does have its advantages. Automatic knowledge and the intuition to apply it is not one of them.

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#22

Post by dfranke »

I thought "category theory" was a very strange thing to include in the list, so I searched down and found this equally strange comment: "I wish I had time to spend a year learning category theory to better understand how to structure things to be compositional". This is akin to saying, "I wish I had time to spend a year studying fluid dynamics so I can learn how to fly a plane".

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#24

Post by jsdalton »

jedsmith wrote: post #18

It's interesting that this question implied the negative -- not what's the difference between , not even what are the strengths and weaknesses of , but: > What pieces of the whole are missing? The implication being that without a formal CS education, it is an impossibility to obtain a whole. As if whole matters; how does one obtain whole , anyway? This is a very loaded question and perspective that betrays a serious…

I'm inclined to disagree. The converse -- what skills does a programmer who has never left academia lack? -- strikes me as perfectly valid. And surely there must be some benefit to taking four (or more) years out of your productive life to the study of programming?

But I say this as a self-taught programmer, so perhaps it's just that I'm envious of those who've had the benefit of a formal CS education.

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#25

Post by danilocampos »

jedsmith wrote: post #18

It's interesting that this question implied the negative -- not what's the difference between , not even what are the strengths and weaknesses of , but: > What pieces of the whole are missing? The implication being that without a formal CS education, it is an impossibility to obtain a whole. As if whole matters; how does one obtain whole , anyway? This is a very loaded question and perspective that betrays a serious…

As a self-taught programmer myself, I confess this is exactly how I would frame the question. I'm constantly worried there's something crucial to which I'm oblivious.

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#26

Post by danilocampos »

jsdalton wrote: post #24
jedsmith wrote: post #18

It's interesting that this question implied the negative -- not what's the difference between , not even what are the strengths and weaknesses of , but: > What pieces of the whole are missing? The implication being that without a formal CS education, it is an impossibility to obtain a whole. As if whole matters; how does one obtain whole , anyway? This is a very loaded question and perspective that betrays a serious…

I'm inclined to disagree. The converse -- what skills does a programmer who has never left academia lack? -- strikes me as perfectly valid. And surely there must be some benefit to taking four (or more) years out of your productive life to the study of programming? But I say this as a self-taught programmer, so perhaps it's just that I'm envious of those who've had the benefit of a formal CS education.

I feel the same. Inferiority complexes for the self-taught?

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#27

Post by markkanof »

danilocampos wrote: post #25
jedsmith wrote: post #18

It's interesting that this question implied the negative -- not what's the difference between , not even what are the strengths and weaknesses of , but: > What pieces of the whole are missing? The implication being that without a formal CS education, it is an impossibility to obtain a whole. As if whole matters; how does one obtain whole , anyway? This is a very loaded question and perspective that betrays a serious…

As a self-taught programmer myself, I confess this is exactly how I would frame the question. I'm constantly worried there's something crucial to which I'm oblivious.

So then the logical answer is that self taught programmers lack the confidence to realize that they are just as good as formally educated programmers. :)

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#28

Post by jedsmith »

pookie25 wrote: post #16
guelo wrote: post #8

My hypothesis is that a CS education would be most useful after you have already spent 5-10 years in industry. Unfortunately for most people life just isn't structured in a way to allow for full time education later in life.

self taught programmers lack talent and the ability to get accepted into a good CS program

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

bmcleod wrote: post #12
silentbicycle wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm an outlier, but the self-taught people I know fare particularly well on compilers and machine-learning among my peers. Maybe it's the circles I travel in, though. :) FWIW, I'm a self-taught information-retrieval / compiler / linguistics geek, currently studying machine learning. I've been programming since I was 5, and I always wanted to be a super-librarian , whatever that meant.

The majority of people I've come across started by doing web stuff or Basic way back in the day. I think in general that's the largest population. The best self-taught people I know have by now read everything that would be in a university reading list anyway. I think it reinforces the point that self-taught people become very knowledgeable about the things they're interested in. The average self-taught programmer is…

[deleted]

Re: What skills do self-taught programmers commonly lack?

#30

Post by [deleted] »

jedsmith wrote: post #18

It's interesting that this question implied the negative -- not what's the difference between , not even what are the strengths and weaknesses of , but: > What pieces of the whole are missing? The implication being that without a formal CS education, it is an impossibility to obtain a whole. As if whole matters; how does one obtain whole , anyway? This is a very loaded question and perspective that betrays a serious…

[deleted]
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