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The best programmers I've worked with are first and foremost problem solvers. One had a CS degree, the other was an accounting major and another a musician with
by mmgutz 11y ago
The best programmers I've worked with are first and foremost problem solvers. One had a CS degree, the other was an accounting major and another a musician with a high school degree.
There are very few CS courses I took at the university that prepared me for the real world. I'm sure there are certain fields like AI, DB algorithms, Math/Science applications, compilers that benefit from formal academic training but for the most part being logical and a a good problem solver are the most important skills.
- Bahamut 11y agoI too have found problem solving to be the most important skill - understanding the problem so you can craft the proper fix or implementation is vital to saving time. Of the best developers I've worked with/know, only 1 has a CS degree. One has a liberal arts degree IIRC (works at Netflix), another is a college dropout (works at Google)...and the one with a CS degree has a tendency to overengineer systems with great flaws that the others I know wouldn't do (tries to be too clever). Myself, I have a MS in math from a top 15 program (PhD dropout).
- jwhitlark 11y agoMy Accounting degree has actually been really useful when working with distributed systems, as accounting systems were the original rigorous distributed systems. I only wish I'd gone heavier on the math.