>Not only that, but of course, I meet folks all the time who think "you don't need a degree to be a programmer." Sure. You don't need a degree to put Ikea furni

>Not only that, but of course, I meet folks all the time who think "you don't need a degree to be a programmer." Sure. You don't need a degree to put Ikea furniture together either. I don't need programmers. I write programs to write programs. I need folks who know how to think... for themselves and learn and go out and find knowledge they need to solve problems and then solve the problems. I've found university to be somewhat of a bad predictor for whether people think for themselves. It is however from my experience a good predictor for following instructions and follow-through (which, as you mentioned, is not unimportant). If I see somebody with no degree, but experience, he might also have follow-through though, and often more resolve to solve problems themselves. I had a university education myself, and while I think it's not strictly necessary for programming, it does give you a good overview of related fields (mathematics, algorithms and maybe others) that often come in handy as part of solving a problem more elegantly or efficiently. And self-taught programmers often don't touch on these topics and have a big blind spot there.