> Spending 4 years teaching yourself will get you way farther than a CS degree will. For the extremely disciplined, maybe. For the rest, no. Traditional schoo

> Spending 4 years teaching yourself will get you way farther than a CS degree will. For the extremely disciplined, maybe. For the rest, no. Traditional schooling helps in two ways. First, they point the way to the important and useful stuff. If you're coming in knowing nothing, it's hard to figure out what to study. A good school will tell you. Second, they make demands. They set assignments and exams, grade what you did, and hold you accountable. They push you harder than you would push yourself, and that's really useful for anyone who is less than perfectly self-motivated, which is most of us.