I got a formal education and degree in software engineering over a long, hard fought four years, which still has me about $25K in debt. I got my job by getting

I got a formal education and degree in software engineering over a long, hard fought four years, which still has me about $25K in debt. I got my job by getting noticed through my GitHub blog, to which I dedicated only about a half hour every other night for a month or so. One night I got an article at the top spot of HN's front page. I had a great job offer within hours from a dev at a company which I've always respected. Content on my blog was self taught, 99% of what I do at work is self taught. Formal CS education is still useful, but the ratio of cost/reward is terrible.