5 ms·

To be fair, you should actually quote what I wrote which was: "Personally, I think the differences come at the top end. I think computer science students who'v

To be fair, you should actually quote what I wrote which was: "Personally, I think the differences come at the top end. I think computer science students who've spent a lot of time doing research (particularly Ph.D.s) gain something that can't be self-taught." So, in this context, I think it makes sense. Yes, there will always be edge cases like Ramanujan (0.00001% of the population) but I took a little liberty not to qualify every single statement I made. If anything, this was more about giving respect to the <1% of people who have Ph.D's. But I guess you were offended.

oniTony 16y ago
But wouldn't a Ph.D., as in reading research papers and arriving at some unique new insight, be closer to "self-taught" than "taught existing knowledge from someone's lecture"?
- kd0amg 16y ago
  If you insist on classifying into those two categories, sure, but when you bring up grad school, there's a lot more to formal education than sitting in lectures.
- joshuaeckroth 16y ago
  As a PhD student myself, I've realized that working through the program is only half "reading research papers and arriving at some unique insight," which you could say is self-teaching. The other half is presenting your ideas to your advisor, peers, faculty, etc. and handling significant criticism. This occurs in higher-level classes, as well, in which the feedback from the prof. is a very important part of the experience. That, of course, is not "self-teaching," far from it. On a more general note, I think people should not make claims about what happens in situations (e.g. PhD programs) that one has not experienced herself. Claims like "whatever that person learned in college could have been learned outside college" is too often false simply because no one person can experience both sides of the debate.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - agentultra 16y ago
    To be fair, the life of a PhD student is pretty well documented. I don't think the first hand experience has much value except to the individual experiencing it. As to the value of a PhD; it's a social construct afaik. It's value is in the reputation you build which is vetted by other PhDs and organizations, your dissertations and debates, by the body of work you publish, and so on. Take all of that away and you're left with just the knowledge which is pretty much available to anyone with half a brain and a spark of curiosity. It's ludicrous to think that I should invest years of my life and more money than most people make in a year in order to learn how to develop an operating system. That knowledge is freely available and easily accessible. Computer vision? Check. Machine learning? Check. Statistics? Check. You don't go to university for a CS degree in order to learn how to program operating systems or figure out data structures. That would be an incredible waste of time and money. Someone who is self-taught is simply self-taught. They may have decided that they don't need the rigors of a formal education. Perhaps they don't care about publishing papers and defending them against critics. However, there's no way to say quantatively that a self-taught programmer is better or worse than a formally educated one. It's purely a value statement and one I find is loaded with a lot of FUD.
    - freshfunk 16y ago
      I don't know. I found two Ph.D. students who's work ended up being pretty important for them... and the rest of the world: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/
      - agentultra 16y ago
        Well what do you know? We can start from there. If you think I am implying the PhD's do not produce important work, I think you are mistaken.
    - MrVitaliy 16y ago
freshfunk 16y ago
@oniTony: For sure. I was thinking more along the lines of the time, effort and resources used in the pursuit of a Ph.D that make it unattainable for most people.
9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago
That's a very bold point to make and not feel the need to qualify, doubly so as it's core to your entire post.
entangld 16y ago
It wasn't fair, but I wasn't intentionally taking you out of context. I was kinda heated and paraphrasing from memory (not an accurate way of quoting). It's not specifically against you, but against an attitude many other people have. The people that believe that knowledge must be handed down to you by authorities. Sometimes those authorities are handing you someone else's logic and experience even though I could understand it on my own. I don't believe every idea/concept needs an interpreter. Apologies for the misquote.
- freshfunk 16y ago
  Appreciate it and I understand. On the whole, I thought my post was pretty balanced. At the end I talk about how I'm looking for people to work with (cofounders / core team) and I care more about their ability to hack than which school they came from. I also said that people with degrees from good schools can become complacent and lazy because they always fall back on it whereas someone without a degree could be a better producer of good work.

oniTony 16y ago

But wouldn't a Ph.D., as in reading research papers and arriving at some unique new insight, be closer to "self-taught" than "taught existing knowledge from someone's lecture"?

kd0amg 16y ago
If you insist on classifying into those two categories, sure, but when you bring up grad school, there's a lot more to formal education than sitting in lectures.
joshuaeckroth 16y ago
As a PhD student myself, I've realized that working through the program is only half "reading research papers and arriving at some unique insight," which you could say is self-teaching. The other half is presenting your ideas to your advisor, peers, faculty, etc. and handling significant criticism. This occurs in higher-level classes, as well, in which the feedback from the prof. is a very important part of the experience. That, of course, is not "self-teaching," far from it. On a more general note, I think people should not make claims about what happens in situations (e.g. PhD programs) that one has not experienced herself. Claims like "whatever that person learned in college could have been learned outside college" is too often false simply because no one person can experience both sides of the debate.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- agentultra 16y ago
  To be fair, the life of a PhD student is pretty well documented. I don't think the first hand experience has much value except to the individual experiencing it. As to the value of a PhD; it's a social construct afaik. It's value is in the reputation you build which is vetted by other PhDs and organizations, your dissertations and debates, by the body of work you publish, and so on. Take all of that away and you're left with just the knowledge which is pretty much available to anyone with half a brain and a spark of curiosity. It's ludicrous to think that I should invest years of my life and more money than most people make in a year in order to learn how to develop an operating system. That knowledge is freely available and easily accessible. Computer vision? Check. Machine learning? Check. Statistics? Check. You don't go to university for a CS degree in order to learn how to program operating systems or figure out data structures. That would be an incredible waste of time and money. Someone who is self-taught is simply self-taught. They may have decided that they don't need the rigors of a formal education. Perhaps they don't care about publishing papers and defending them against critics. However, there's no way to say quantatively that a self-taught programmer is better or worse than a formally educated one. It's purely a value statement and one I find is loaded with a lot of FUD.
  - freshfunk 16y ago
    I don't know. I found two Ph.D. students who's work ended up being pretty important for them... and the rest of the world: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~page/
    - agentultra 16y ago
      Well what do you know? We can start from there. If you think I am implying the PhD's do not produce important work, I think you are mistaken.
  - MrVitaliy 16y ago

freshfunk 16y ago

@oniTony: For sure. I was thinking more along the lines of the time, effort and resources used in the pursuit of a Ph.D that make it unattainable for most people.

9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago

That's a very bold point to make and not feel the need to qualify, doubly so as it's core to your entire post.

entangld 16y ago

It wasn't fair, but I wasn't intentionally taking you out of context. I was kinda heated and paraphrasing from memory (not an accurate way of quoting). It's not specifically against you, but against an attitude many other people have. The people that believe that knowledge must be handed down to you by authorities. Sometimes those authorities are handing you someone else's logic and experience even though I could understand it on my own. I don't believe every idea/concept needs an interpreter. Apologies for the misquote.

freshfunk 16y ago
Appreciate it and I understand. On the whole, I thought my post was pretty balanced. At the end I talk about how I'm looking for people to work with (cofounders / core team) and I care more about their ability to hack than which school they came from. I also said that people with degrees from good schools can become complacent and lazy because they always fall back on it whereas someone without a degree could be a better producer of good work.