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I worked 20 years in software and publishing with no degree. In my experience, no one cared. I did not see any correlation between skill level and degree. Pr
by bkovitz 18y ago
I worked 20 years in software and publishing with no degree. In my experience, no one cared.
I did not see any correlation between skill level and degree. Programming is a craft, like carpentry. You learn it by doing it, by doing it with other people, by thinking about it and talking about it, a little bit by reading books about it, and almost not at all by watching lectures about it.
That said, people who don't have the kind of experience with programming to tell a good programmer from a bad one have to resort to proxy measures like credentials. I usually worked for small companies, where this is less of a problem.
- dhimes 18y agoBut a carpenter is not an architect. The barrier to entry for pure programming is rather low. I see programming today as in a similar state as auto mechanics was in the 1970s & early 80s in the US. If you had good sense and aptitude, you could be one, and the barrier to entry was very low. Now it's different. You (for the most part) need some sort of certification to be a "grease monkey;" and even then, you are fixing, tuning and rebuilding engines, not designing them.