I see three sides of the 'learn from the fundamentals up' argument. On the one hand, 'Real Programmers Use Butterflies'. On the other, an understanding of core

I see three sides of the 'learn from the fundamentals up' argument. On the one hand, 'Real Programmers Use Butterflies'. On the other, an understanding of core algorithms and basic software design principles is really, really useful. On the gripping hand, completely self-taught rubes build incredibly useful and commercially valuable software in Excel.