4 ms·

That is a great collection of articles, but reading from Wikipedia is never going to teach you taste and style in programming like having Simon Peyton-Jones as

That is a great collection of articles, but reading from Wikipedia is never going to teach you taste and style in programming like having Simon Peyton-Jones as a guest lecturer, or having your professor call PASCAL a steaming pile of crp ... A computer science degree will also expose you to people much smarter than you, that serves as a useful humbling experience. This is assuming you are not the next Bill Gates (holds entire 8080 BASIC interpreter in head).

swombat 18y ago
Reading Wikipedia won't teach you that, true. But hearing any lecturer or professor make any sort of statements about programming is never going to teach you ability and competence in programming, not like sitting in front of your computer and trying to convince it to make some cool trick that you saw or read about, or leaping into the open source community, or doing any kinds of hands-on, no-need-for-university-stuff programming, will. Any degree at a good university will expose you to people much smarter than you. No need to study computer science for that. Despite my strong interest and ability in programming, I did a physics degree. I don't regret that. It's given me a breadth of knowledge that I would never have achieved had I studied pure computing. I believe that if you're a passionate programmer, you'll learn everything you need "on the job", so to speak (whether that job is paid or a hobby). However, there are many interesting things that you'll never learn unless you study them at university.
- ratsbane 18y ago
  "Any degree at a good university will expose you to people much smarter..." and that is important, but I think you can also get the same benefit from working on projects with really smart people, reviewing their code, and having them review yours. Open source projects are great for training people. Google's code review process with Mondrian seens like a super example of this (from my perspective - outside, looking in.)
- wallflower 18y ago
  > Despite my strong interest and ability in programming, I did a physics degree. I don't regret that. It's given me a breadth of knowledge that I would never have achieved had I studied pure computing. Do you feel that you could solve almost any problem (maybe not even technical-based) given enough time? Despite the strong campaigning by my parents to declare CS, I entered the civil engineering program. It was tough to land my first real programming job, but I had trouble staying interested (and sometimes awake) during 8am structural engineering classes. I believe undergraduate engineering is masterful at teaching problem solving. That can be applied to anything technical. Honestly, after years of spending 3-4 hours on painful homework problems (like finding the forces internal to a wind-pushed power transmission structure), developing software can be a joy. 1st year - well-defined small problems (e.g. Physics 101). 2nd year - bigger problems, labs, basic hard engineering concepts (this is the weed-out year). 3rd year - problem-based projects. teamwork/collaboration. You're smart+lucky if you can solve/get the homework problem - even if you don't you're learning the process. Zero-force members.. 4th year - Here's the situation. You define the problem. Go design a solution. Write a 100-page report. You have three months.
  - krschultz 18y ago
    Exactly, I'm doing Mechanical Engineering, and I picked up a minor in CS to pump up my GPA. It seems like a much better combo than pure CS because it is much harder. (Isn't there a PG essay about staying upwind of your goal, an engineering degree is certainly upwind of CS. Not knocking on Computer Engineering here, that is one of the hardest engineering degrees for sure). As for "meeting smarter people", I don't know, I was 100% self taught when I got my job at my startup because I hadn't started CS yet, and the smartest people I have ever met are the guys in my company - much more so than professors. All are computer and electrical engineers though, we only have one CS major, and hes a self taught guy too. My roommate is a CS major who never taught himself anything - and though I like the guy, he is 2 years "ahead of me" and I program circles around him.
  - swombat 18y ago
    Do you feel that you could solve almost any problem (maybe not even technical-based) given enough time? Without trying to appear super-arrogant, yes. What I did learn from university, though (I went to Oxford... that probably helped.. hence a "good" university in my previous post), is that there are many people out there who can solve some of those problems a hell of a lot quicker than I can, with less effort - including things I thought myself really good at. That was a lesson in humility and worth the four years it took to learn it.

swombat 18y ago

Reading Wikipedia won't teach you that, true. But hearing any lecturer or professor make any sort of statements about programming is never going to teach you ability and competence in programming, not like sitting in front of your computer and trying to convince it to make some cool trick that you saw or read about, or leaping into the open source community, or doing any kinds of hands-on, no-need-for-university-stuff programming, will. Any degree at a good university will expose you to people much smarter than you. No need to study computer science for that. Despite my strong interest and ability in programming, I did a physics degree. I don't regret that. It's given me a breadth of knowledge that I would never have achieved had I studied pure computing. I believe that if you're a passionate programmer, you'll learn everything you need "on the job", so to speak (whether that job is paid or a hobby). However, there are many interesting things that you'll never learn unless you study them at university.

ratsbane 18y ago
"Any degree at a good university will expose you to people much smarter..." and that is important, but I think you can also get the same benefit from working on projects with really smart people, reviewing their code, and having them review yours. Open source projects are great for training people. Google's code review process with Mondrian seens like a super example of this (from my perspective - outside, looking in.)
wallflower 18y ago
> Despite my strong interest and ability in programming, I did a physics degree. I don't regret that. It's given me a breadth of knowledge that I would never have achieved had I studied pure computing. Do you feel that you could solve almost any problem (maybe not even technical-based) given enough time? Despite the strong campaigning by my parents to declare CS, I entered the civil engineering program. It was tough to land my first real programming job, but I had trouble staying interested (and sometimes awake) during 8am structural engineering classes. I believe undergraduate engineering is masterful at teaching problem solving. That can be applied to anything technical. Honestly, after years of spending 3-4 hours on painful homework problems (like finding the forces internal to a wind-pushed power transmission structure), developing software can be a joy. 1st year - well-defined small problems (e.g. Physics 101). 2nd year - bigger problems, labs, basic hard engineering concepts (this is the weed-out year). 3rd year - problem-based projects. teamwork/collaboration. You're smart+lucky if you can solve/get the homework problem - even if you don't you're learning the process. Zero-force members.. 4th year - Here's the situation. You define the problem. Go design a solution. Write a 100-page report. You have three months.
- krschultz 18y ago
  Exactly, I'm doing Mechanical Engineering, and I picked up a minor in CS to pump up my GPA. It seems like a much better combo than pure CS because it is much harder. (Isn't there a PG essay about staying upwind of your goal, an engineering degree is certainly upwind of CS. Not knocking on Computer Engineering here, that is one of the hardest engineering degrees for sure). As for "meeting smarter people", I don't know, I was 100% self taught when I got my job at my startup because I hadn't started CS yet, and the smartest people I have ever met are the guys in my company - much more so than professors. All are computer and electrical engineers though, we only have one CS major, and hes a self taught guy too. My roommate is a CS major who never taught himself anything - and though I like the guy, he is 2 years "ahead of me" and I program circles around him.
- swombat 18y ago
  Do you feel that you could solve almost any problem (maybe not even technical-based) given enough time? Without trying to appear super-arrogant, yes. What I did learn from university, though (I went to Oxford... that probably helped.. hence a "good" university in my previous post), is that there are many people out there who can solve some of those problems a hell of a lot quicker than I can, with less effort - including things I thought myself really good at. That was a lesson in humility and worth the four years it took to learn it.