"The issue is money. Which nobody is proposing more of for our state universities." A few things. First of all, I'd say a pretty good proportion of the best programmers I know were self taught (i.e. didn't go to college or else majored in something completley unrelated to CS, e.g. French lit). Second, there are growing opportunities to learn code online. I don't even need to mention any of them to this crowd. Third,…
It's been a while since I've debunked the bunk of an education post. I hope I'm not too rusty. (The formatting is horrible and I apologize. I can't decide between italics for quoting the parent or fixed width indents. Right now the fixed width indents are the parent being quoted.) First of all, I'd say a pretty good proportion of the best programmers I know were self taught I've noticed people tend to self-select tal…
But what works for me won't work for everyone.
However, you're point about selection bias is a good one, it's just not applicable in terms of educational experience in my case, but in my case it is applicable in terms of geography - I live and work in the SF Bay Area, so educational credentials are just not valued as much here).
But I would contend that the rest of the world might learn a thing or two from the SV model of focusing ruthlessly on results and not pieces of paper.