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Code != computer science

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Re: Code != computer science

#31

Post by j2kun »

woah wrote: post #20

I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something in their code that I wasn't seeing, but I don't think so. There can also be a bit of an attitude, like the person is thinking "of course this is good, I we…

People in academia simply don't care about the quality of one particular implementation of their ideas. There's no value judgement here, it's just not their job to write and maintain good software. Just as it's not a mathematician's job to maintain a cryptographic protocol or a physicist's job to keep a satellite in orbit. The people who went to schools with strong research programs are trained by people in that mindset.

It's a simple question of motivation. If they're brilliant and they have motivation, then of course they could write great software. They just don't.

Make no mistake, people from schools like Cal Poly SLO (a state school, and my alma mater) who excelled in their CS programs can software engineer circles around most. Why? Because Cal Poly has no research program, three quarters of their faculty come from industry, and their faculty have no job requirements outside of teaching. They literally had us managing five to ten thousand line software projects with teams of students in year two.

Re: Code != computer science

#32

Post by j2kun »

People who claim they'll never use computer science in their job as a programmer remind me of the people who say they'll never need math after school.

It reminds me of the old xkcd: you can get by without it, but the fun things in life are always optional.

Re: Code != computer science

#33

Post by notastartup »

I think Dr. Nassim Taleb, author of Fooled By Randomness put it the best. Real knowledge is gained from tinkering, trial and error. A degree from a recognized academic institution is largely a social credit that is earned through memorization and the ability to recall and recite those references.

I studied Economics, so I had to figure out how to code (still at it) by relying on the internet and experimenting. Doing things that seemed interesting. I didn't study CS because at the time it seemed impossibly hard, so instead I focused on learning by reading books, experimenting.

I have friends with computing science degree yet they cannot code or have shipped software. Ironic that they cannot work as a software developer but it's the same reason I feel about my Economics degree (not working as an investment banker as I'd dreamed but thank god). Rather their theoretical knowledge in computing science degree seemed to limit their true potential to realize coding involves a different part of the brain then the ones used to pass final exams.

I often find the computing science questions in job interviews puzzling. How does the ability to recite an algorithm from the textbook translate into being able to ship code? How does one learn how to play a concerto by simply reading a book listing instructions and being asked to recite specific pages? It's my belief that coding (in terms of shipping software) is a highly organized and rational form of art. You are writing words but it's strictly limited to what the creators of the programming language have selected. How you form the sentences that the computer can understand really comes from trial and error until you've become familiar with it.

Re: Code != computer science

#34

Post by banachtarski »

woah wrote: post #20

I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something in their code that I wasn't seeing, but I don't think so. There can also be a bit of an attitude, like the person is thinking "of course this is good, I we…

"If you hire too many computer scientists, your code base could be full of fascinating technical tricks, but creaky and hard to work with. Too many craftsmen, and you'll get stuck on simple problems. It's a balance."

Your whole post is full over hand waving and overgeneralization. You've never met a CS major who wrote clean code without resorting to fascinating technical tricks? You haven't met a non-CS major who did his or her due diligence to learn the mathematical fundamentals?

Please cut the hyperbole.

Re: Code != computer science

#35

Post by cjf4 »

sheetjs wrote: post #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…

The key piece of context about this quote is that Ryan Carson has a vested interest in people deciding they do not need a computer science degree to code.

Re: Code != computer science

#36

Post by nevster »

woah wrote: post #20

I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something in their code that I wasn't seeing, but I don't think so. There can also be a bit of an attitude, like the person is thinking "of course this is good, I we…

Also maybe some other reasons for downvotes:

- 1.5 years experience isn't very much to base an opinion like this on

- Finding other people's code hard to read is pretty common, no matter how good those coder's are. Your own code generally makes perfect sense to you, same as your writing. But communicating so that all can understand it is hard. That's why flame wars occur. You probably think your comment is a reasonably argued piece of writing, just like you think your code is nicely refactored and understandable. The fact that people disagree and downvote proves the point I think.

Re: Code != computer science

#37

Post by caprad »

woah wrote: post #20

I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something in their code that I wasn't seeing, but I don't think so. There can also be a bit of an attitude, like the person is thinking "of course this is good, I we…

> I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience.

Be careful, everybody writes worse code than you, because you wrote the code. And these is a difference in writing nice simple code, and rewriting the same function to work on a bunch of different machines that does the core of the application, and you have until the end of the week until it goes live.

Re: Code != computer science

#38

Post by walid »

joelgrus wrote: post #10

computer science != a CS degree

hahaha that is a whole new can of worms...

In my experience, mentors matter more than the course title. I've had the privilege of being taught by some of the best teachers and witnessed some of the worst. When your instructor deals with the course material as the sole purpose of a student being in class then the important lessons of computer science become nothing more than an exercise in regurgitation. However I've had my eyes opened by certain individuals who showed me what mathematics means in real life, how algorithms fail, why project management is important and how it's done and even how all coding has a mathematical basis (like SQL and compiler decisions). Personally my CS appreciation was a byproduct of being in the presence of these mentors rather than reading a book. They showed me the essence of the science. Mind you I love the books and still read my university books sometimes for fun, sometimes to brush up on the science after getting rusty.

Re: Code != computer science

#39

Post by TheZenPsycho »

banachtarski wrote: post #34
woah wrote: post #20

I look at this from the other side as well. I've worked with brilliant people with ivy league CS degrees who wrote much messier and less maintainable code than me, an autodidact designer/js dev with 1.5 years of experience. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something in their code that I wasn't seeing, but I don't think so. There can also be a bit of an attitude, like the person is thinking "of course this is good, I we…

"If you hire too many computer scientists, your code base could be full of fascinating technical tricks, but creaky and hard to work with. Too many craftsmen, and you'll get stuck on simple problems. It's a balance." Your whole post is full over hand waving and overgeneralization. You've never met a CS major who wrote clean code without resorting to fascinating technical tricks? You haven't met a non-CS major who did…

What do you expect? We're talking about someone sharing their personal experience, not their 5 year double blind statistically rigorous study. Take it for what it is. I expect HN to be full of people who can take information in, with a critical eye, without wasting time quibbling over quality. We know the quality of the information source (he states it at the head of the comment!), we don't have to rehash the basics, science, and sources of evidence for every comment do we?

Re: Code != computer science

#40

Post by walid »

sheetjs wrote: post #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…

Well if you think of it, a CEO like Steve Jobs will call the PC a truck... to sell the iPad.

• Computer Science = Truck

• Treehouse = iPad

But how do you make iPad dev tools?

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