Code != computer science
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Code != computer science
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Re: Code != computer science
#2Yeah, a CS degree isn't suuuper-helpful for organizing a coherent program around a snazzy framework for the latest web technologies. It's for when you need to do something like, oh, "figure out how to upgrade the work-management system so you can move from coarse-grained lock system to a finer-grained lock system with zero downtime." Then you think back to your old courses covering Parallelism and the like, and plan it out.
Re: Code != computer science
#3Customers rarely care what we code or computer science in
Re: Code != computer science
#4> Treehouse CEO Ryan Carson declares “A computer science degree is a rip off…I know because I have one.” Perhaps his CS degree was from a college which didn’t have a very good program or maybe his focus has been web development where you rarely need computer science.
According to wikipedia:
> In 2000, he graduated from Colorado State University with a Computer Science degree
I suspect, like with most fields, that the school definitely matters (and that he may not have arrived at the same conclusion had he attended a school with a better CS program)
Re: Code != computer science
#5I've always thought of computer science as a branch of mathematics. To me coding or programming is applied (or engineering) computer science, it's an engineering field (hence the term software engineer). Just like there is theoretical physics (a basic science), and also applied/engineering physics (e.g. mechanical engineering). They are related fields, but specializing in one does not mean you will be good at the other (it certainly helps).
The terms coding and computer science do get used interchangeably by a lot of people though, since most may not understand the difference. I've learned to live with it (occasionally I point out the difference, if I think the person misusing the terms actually cared to know).
Re: Code != computer science
#6[deleted]
Re: Code != computer science
#7Speaking from experience, this is true. You also don't really know when true CS is useful until you run into it.
I graduated with the equivalent of a minor in CS. When I started coding for an web-based gaming start-up in 2007, it was mostly irrelevant. You don't need a CS degree to learn Ruby on Rails, nor is it necessarily useful (beyond your basic intro courses) to have taken CS courses.
Flash-forward a year, after we raised our seed round. Our online game had grown in complexity quite a bit, and we found ourselves having to deal with things like complex image rendering, AI, and pathfinding. While it's possible to get a decent grasp of these topics through Google and O'Reilly books, it's definitely an order of magnitude more difficult than figuring out a new web framework. As mentioned before, I only have a minor in CS so my exposure to these topics was minimal, and there were definitely nights where I found myself wishing I had taken another AI or advanced algorithms course.
Re: Code != computer science
#8I did an undergrad in CS (Columbia) - in retrospect I should only have minored in CS.
I'm not sure it's worth the workload!
You will have _no_ free time and get reamed in GPA
Very math-heavy and the project based classes were brutal.
Re: Code != computer science
#9Customers rarely care what we code or computer science in
Customers of any product rarely care what the people involved with the arts and sciences behind those product's creations do.
That observation is not restricted to coding or comp sci.
Re: Code != computer science
#10computer science != a CS degree