Look, as far as I'm concerned, unless you had nothing but other peoples' source code and API documentation, you are not 'self-taught.' I used to cobble togethe

Look, as far as I'm concerned, unless you had nothing but other peoples' source code and API documentation, you are not 'self-taught.' I used to cobble together VBA macros for Excel at work, based on code snippets and the built-in help files. At first, although I got things done, I really had not a blinking clue what I was doing. Then after a few weeks I bought Excel VBA for Dummies - which taught me how to do things properly and understand the essence of all the constructs I was using. I read more books, and I read web tutorials and watched video lectures. They taught me a lot. Then I left work to get a post-graduate-conversion certification in IT. I always said I was doing it for the cert, not the teaching. The course was good but only because it instilled discipline. Really attending a lecture is no different than watching one on YouTube or iTunesU. The teachers don't have time to give you personal tuition. Their notes are not more instructive than the classic CS/software books in publication. The learning materials available elsewhere are decent rivals to professional education courses. The only thing I can see being a huge benefit is doing pair-programming with an expert for a few years, but how many courses offer that? Not to mention, the learning that's supposed to go on at universities is hardly automatic. So therefore the question is meaningless, unless you mean actually self-taught people, who would probably (if they managed to develop into competent professionals) have some strange quirks. Like self-taught musicians who never learnt common techniques I guess.