No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by mncolinlee » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

I have no CS degree, but at the time I was in college, CS programs seemed embarrassingly poor compared to today. I took a few, elective CS courses and did CS research back then and remember numerous graduate students trying to cheat off of the undergraduate English major.

I'll say this. There's advantages starting both ways. By starting from a CS background, you're likely to get a formal education into concepts and terminology that might seem boring otherwise. By starting from a non-CS background, you begin with the most important skill a programmer requires-- the ability and passion to teach yourself new technologies and concepts.

Any developer who begins with a CS background can learn to be self-taught.

Any developer who begins without a CS degree can learn algorithms and advanced concepts.

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

#232

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

fishmm22 wrote: post #198

dcole2929 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been really involved in teaching people with non-traditional backgrounds (e.g. no cs degree) to program lately, and this has been my biggest struggle. There are people who are working in the field as a web dev and have been for years and can't do simple stuff like iterate. They have no understanding of what the stuff they're actually doing means or does. It's just copy and pasting snippets they see online and fi…

It is funny that people constantly mention these supposed developers who have jobs but cant program. Where are these jobs? I have a recent cs degree, did resume coaching, and worked through a couple coding interview exercise books. Still having trouble finding work. Show me one of these mythical jobs poorly trained programmers get, I will blow them out of the water. In reality I think most of those jobs have been out…

Apply for bank outside of a tech hub, or any job outside of the major US cities. There's plenty of positions full of people riding the "expert beginner" status, blissfully unaware of how far behind they are because top performers leave for the hubs and the better opportunities offered there.

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

#233

Post by astura » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

nobleach wrote: post #180

blymphony wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even government jobs are out of reach for you. I work as a federal employee without any college degree doing web development with React/Node/AWS.

You're lucky. When I worked for the federal government(USDA/USFS), there was no way I was going to get access to non-windows servers for deploying my projects. When we brought up the idea of using AWS, they told is that it was impossible as they had no way to handle reoccurring monthly billing. (obviously, this is a lazy excuse). The only node project I managed to get deployed ran behind Apache on Windows Server 2003…

Ummmm.... Lots of government services run on AWS.

https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/government/

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

#234

Post by dentemple » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #224

No CS degree is fine when you’re doing trivial programming work that doesn’t really matter, such as application frontends. But could you imagine riding in a plane or using critical infrastructure services programmed by people with absolutely no computer science degree to their name? Not a chance. Like getting surgery from a butcher.

People who get jobs without a degree don't invalidate the people who do get a degree. Or that there are use-cases where a degree is necessary.

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

#235

Post by alephu5 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #192

arethuza wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Haskell developer?

I doubt there are many Haskell developers (or one at all) without a academic background ..

I'm a self-taught developer with haskell in my arsenal, although that being said I have an MSc in theoretical physics which probably helps me appreciate the power of its paradigm.

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

#236

Post by tasuki » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #192

arethuza wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Haskell developer?

I doubt there are many Haskell developers (or one at all) without a academic background ..

There definitely are! Eg Jezen Thomas. Hopefully in the future also myself :)

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

#237

Post by happythen » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

There is no such thing as self-taught, (doesn't even make sense). No one opens a computer, figures out how the processor takes instructions and invents their own language. If you went to college, you listened, you studied, and you practiced. If you did't go to college, you studied, you practiced, and you had to have found someone who will answer your questions.

It's hard for everyone to enter the industry, especially now, college or not. It's not about how smart you are, or your identity, or your environment. It's how bad you want it, how hard you'll work for it, and if someone is willing to help you.

As software engineers, degrees or not, focus on that last part. Be there for someone learning, studying or just trying to figure it out. Feels great to see a finished product. Feels even better to teach someone how to fish, (code for money). I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for people along the way, giving pointers, telling me where to look, telling me what not to do. I was a gawd dang line cook. Be that helpful person.

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

#238

Post by learc83 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #86

illuminati1911 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely true, however in reality (= in practice) very few non-CS degree devs _will_ reach the same level of knowledge. When you have to learn all that stuff to get your degree, then you just have to learn it. Period. Also people who are full time students have more time to spend on these topics, but when you are actually working 8h+ per day and your career is mostly around JS frameworks it becomes much har…

> When you have to learn all that stuff to get your degree, then you just have to learn it. Period. Or you could just do the bare minimum that your class’s TA will let you get away with, which usually means not much at all…

There's a huge difference between taking the easiest path through a degree (mostly Cs, the easiest electives you can take etc...), and someone who pushed themselves while in college. That's why if the degree is a big part of someone's resume, I ask for a transcript.

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

#239

Post by jshowa3 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

gnode wrote: post #181

jshowa3 wrote: post #76

I just find these odd. Does anyone struggle with this stuff? They just make it all look so easy. I for one struggle quite a bit with coding, design, theory, and other aspects. I just don't get how so many people think coding is as easy as "reading a book" or "doing a tutorial".

"Coding" is as meaningless a term as "writing". Much in the same way you can leverage basic writing skills to achieve entrepreneurial success, you can do so with coding skills. A literary academic may still consider writing to be a substantial exercise, probably more so than the untaught.

That's because the academic knows not to produce low quality content. The untaught often does not. I'm still reeling from having to maintain spaghetti code that some untaughts have churned out in my career.

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

#240

Post by hutzlibu » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

alephu5 wrote: post #235

hutzlibu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there are many Haskell developers (or one at all) without a academic background ..

I'm a self-taught developer with haskell in my arsenal, although that being said I have an MSc in theoretical physics which probably helps me appreciate the power of its paradigm.

So you do have a academic background (especially math)..