Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask YC: Why the degree?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 211 posts

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#81

Post by xlnt »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #76
LPTS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption does not hold with more information. First, self teaching processes filter out idiots too, since idiots can't self teach. P(qualified | (no degree + autodidactic)) > P(qualified | (Degree + little self teaching ability))

Agreed completely. But how do you get more information cheaply? Remember, all you know is P(qualified| resume says autodidactic)= P(qualified | autodidactic) * P(autodidactic | resume says autodidactic) . The second term can easily kill you. Do you trust everything people put on their resume? On the other hand, P(degree | resume says degree) is probably close to 1, since a degree is so easy for an HR person to check.…

There are lots of other cheap filters that companies do not use. For example, "Have you read Ayn Rand?" This question may well have better predictive power than a degree. And it's not hard to verify if the person is lying about whether they've read some at all.

Or, "how many blog posts do you have about programming?" Again this is easy to verify.

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#82

Post by gnaritas »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #76
LPTS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption does not hold with more information. First, self teaching processes filter out idiots too, since idiots can't self teach. P(qualified | (no degree + autodidactic)) > P(qualified | (Degree + little self teaching ability))

Agreed completely. But how do you get more information cheaply? Remember, all you know is P(qualified| resume says autodidactic)= P(qualified | autodidactic) * P(autodidactic | resume says autodidactic) . The second term can easily kill you. Do you trust everything people put on their resume? On the other hand, P(degree | resume says degree) is probably close to 1, since a degree is so easy for an HR person to check.…

In the programming industry, it's not really that hard to filter out bad candidates. You shouldn't waste time talking to any programmer not willing to submit to some simplistic programming test in lieu of a resume. Resumes are crap and have no place in hiring programmers. Code is all that matters, either they can do it or they can't and if they can, they'll accept your challenge.

Nothing makes for a better interview than doing a code review and critique of the candidates own code. Something simple but telling like write a little slot machine that lets you bet money, spin the wheel, and win or lose with the game ending when you run out of money.

Anyone who refuses such a test isn't a programmer you want anyway, and you can tell an enormous amount about a potential candidate by simply looking at the quality of the code submitted. Don't bother interviewing anyone who's code you can't stand. You can see everything you need to know about their skills in that code.

You wouldn't hire a graphic designer who refused to submit samples of his designs, nor should you hire a programmer who refuses to submit samples of his code. Merely by having such a test, you'll weed out all the fakers because they won't bother with it, they'll submit their fake resumes elsewhere.

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#83

Post by msg »

Lots of people have probably read these, but Steve Yegge wrote some great posts about interview loops on his old Amazon blog.

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/five-essential-phone-scre...

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/why-phone-screens-matter

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/what-you-need-to-know

Here's an excerpt from that last one that is on point:

"My point today is that although I don't feel you need to have a Computer Science degree in order to be a good developer, I do believe that there is a set of learnings, which you normally acquire in the course of a CS degree, that I would consider to be part of the core set of ideas that are 'software common sense'. If you don't know them, then I will feel that you lack common sense.

"In our CS degree, we saw a lot of proofs, and had to work through many of them by hand. I feel that this was to some extent unnecessary, since it obscured the importance of the things we were proving by putting us all to sleep. Being able to prove something does allow you to reason through it to assure yourself of its correctness, and to derive it from first principles if you've forgotten it. But in everyday programming, you don't need to do proofs. You ought to have a feel for the outline of the proof, the sort of intuitive derivation of a rule, so you can reason through it with yourself and with others. But you don't need to be ultra-formal about it unless you happen to love proofs, as some folks do.

"Instead, you need to be aware of the major findings and learnings of Computer Science, and the rough reasons for them. I realize this opinion is going to displease two audiences: CS theory folks, who will think it's too weak, and professional programmers with no CS degree, who will think it's too strong. But it's my opinion and I'll stick with it."

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#84

Post by neilc »

gnaritas wrote: post #79
neilc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal people who want to learn such things pick up a book and read about it. I would be very surprised to find very many "normal people" who have the drive to learn, say, probability theory or statistics to any reasonable depth by self-study. Of course such people exist, but they are neither typical nor common.

I said normal people who want . Now it's true that normal people don't generally want to learn probability theory, but if they do, they'll turn to books and self teaching long before school unless they're extremely young and still think of school as life. Once you've been in the real world for a while, the idea of going back to school is generally the last option, not the first. The only thing school has to offer ove…

they'll turn to books and self teaching long before school unless they're extremely young and still think of school as life.

On the contrary, many people take classes and attend conferences, workshops and seminars at many different ages. You could learn cooking by self study, but cooking classes continue to be popular, despite being more expensive.

The only thing school has to offer over self directed learning is very smart people to learn from

Hardly the only thing: a lot of things are easier to learn when you're in a group of intelligent people all interested in approximately the same thing, and all trying to learn the same subject matter (I'm thinking mostly of graduate seminar classes here, not 300-student undergrad lectures).

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#85

Post by eru »

Goladus wrote: post #72
LPTS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption does not hold with more information. First, self teaching processes filter out idiots too, since idiots can't self teach. P(qualified | (no degree + autodidactic)) > P(qualified | (Degree + little self teaching ability))

For those following along at home, the unpretentious word for "autodidact" is "self-taught"

Is autodidact such an unusual word in English?

(I would find a perfectly acceptable - but I am not a native speaker though. That's why I am asking.)

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#86

Post by gnaritas »

neilc wrote: post #84
gnaritas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said normal people who want . Now it's true that normal people don't generally want to learn probability theory, but if they do, they'll turn to books and self teaching long before school unless they're extremely young and still think of school as life. Once you've been in the real world for a while, the idea of going back to school is generally the last option, not the first. The only thing school has to offer ove…

they'll turn to books and self teaching long before school unless they're extremely young and still think of school as life. On the contrary, many people take classes and attend conferences, workshops and seminars at many different ages. You could learn cooking by self study, but cooking classes continue to be popular, despite being more expensive. The only thing school has to offer over self directed learning is ver…

I didn't say adults don't go to school, only that it's usually not the first option.

You second point just echo's what I already said, smart people to learn from, that includes your teachers and peers.

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#87

Post by eru »

gnaritas wrote: post #82
yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. But how do you get more information cheaply? Remember, all you know is P(qualified| resume says autodidactic)= P(qualified | autodidactic) * P(autodidactic | resume says autodidactic) . The second term can easily kill you. Do you trust everything people put on their resume? On the other hand, P(degree | resume says degree) is probably close to 1, since a degree is so easy for an HR person to check.…

In the programming industry, it's not really that hard to filter out bad candidates. You shouldn't waste time talking to any programmer not willing to submit to some simplistic programming test in lieu of a resume. Resumes are crap and have no place in hiring programmers. Code is all that matters, either they can do it or they can't and if they can, they'll accept your challenge. Nothing makes for a better interview…

That may work better than a resume.

Can you imagine a test for the ability to work on larger programs?

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#88

Post by vaksel »

jamesbritt wrote: post #78
vaksel wrote: post #64

I can see requiring a degree if you want someone from a good university...Stanford, MIT...that way you know from the get go that you are getting a smart person. But in reality neither that, nor job experience really matters. Why? Because a person can write anything they want on their resume and you'll never know that they are BSing

" Why? Because a person can write anything they want on their resume and you'll never know that they are BSing" Unless you pick up the phone and make a few calls. There are many things that are trivial to check, such as whether someone actually attended a given school or worked at a given company. Certainly people can and do BS on their resume and get away with it, but its not because resumes are inherently unverifia…

how do you know the phone # someone gives you is their ex-boss' phone # and not their buddy's

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#89

Post by sah »

maxklein wrote: post #68
sah wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a self-taught hacker, this just isn't true of me. I'm constantly reading about things that I have no immediate use for. In fact, one of the reasons I dropped out of my CS undergrad program was that I felt like its focus was too narrow.

So what stopped you from absorbing all of the narrow focus and then discovering more by reading on the side?

There's nothing wrong with doing things that way. I know a bunch of smart people who did that.

But if you're going to be teaching yourself on the side anyway, part of the value of being in school in the first place is reduced. Depending on your financial situation, it might make sense to just teach yourself full-time, or to do your reading on the side while working.

I hated school. After a while I decided that I was better off without it. Ten years later, I still feel that way.

Re: Ask YC: Why the degree?

#90

Post by gnaritas »

eru wrote: post #87
gnaritas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the programming industry, it's not really that hard to filter out bad candidates. You shouldn't waste time talking to any programmer not willing to submit to some simplistic programming test in lieu of a resume. Resumes are crap and have no place in hiring programmers. Code is all that matters, either they can do it or they can't and if they can, they'll accept your challenge. Nothing makes for a better interview…

That may work better than a resume. Can you imagine a test for the ability to work on larger programs?

Good code is good code, I don't agree that it takes a vastly different skill set to work on different sized programs. During the interview you can simply ask questions such as "How would you provide the ability to configure various strategies for different users interfaces for this slot machine? Say a web UI, a command line UI, and a native app UI?". "How might you make the randomizer for spinning the slots configurable?". The discussions these open up will tell you a lot about their knowledge of making flexible software.

Again, the test is just to weed out the bad candidates and allow you to only interview worthy people, everything else you'll find out in the actual interview. Interviews will be rare, few people will submit code you'll find acceptable at all. The vast majority of people applying for programming jobs, can't program, it's sad, but true.

Post reply on HN