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Thank you for illustrating my point. No one would be expected to do meet those high standards, as you say. No one would be expected to be experts in basic chem

Thank you for illustrating my point. No one would be expected to do meet those high standards, as you say. No one would be expected to be experts in basic chemistry by their first year of college. Yet in this very post, there are countless examples of people saying the best programmers were the ones that knew it all before college, who didn't need college, who put in the time to learn before college, etc. No other field is this expected. That's the point. Playing with science and doing small little cute fun experiments is a lot different than me teaching myself productive front end development at age 16. I don't expect other 16 year olds overall to do as I did. Nor do I judge people if they didn't.

jasode 9y ago
>in this very post, there are countless examples of people saying the best programmers were the ones that knew it all before college, Nobody in this thread has said that programmers should "know it all" before college. You're injecting conditions and standards (like "mastery") that no poster actually wrote. >No other field is this expected. That's the point. This isn't true. You can see coaching advice for electrical engineers to update their resume with any DIY (do-it-yourself) electronics projects that would demonstrate self-motivation, passion, etc to potential employers. In that respect, it's not much different than computer programming. Do electrical engineers get jobs without any personal side projects?!? Yes, of course. Same as computer science -- many programmers get jobs without side projects. In both scenarios, it isn't absolutely necessary but it's a way to stand out from the crowd.