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> "- little or no required education": maybe, but only for the rare prodigy. "Software engineers" without an understanding of math and some amount of formal com

> "- little or no required education": maybe, but only for the rare prodigy. "Software engineers" without an understanding of math and some amount of formal computer science are necessary evils rather than assets. Or are doing low-level, low-thought work. The key here is required education. You will be expected to have certain skills, but how you acquire those skills is up to you. At one past job, there were 6 developers on my team, and only 2 of us had CS degrees. The others had degrees in physics, bioengineering, electrical engineering, and one without a degree. In contrast, every doctor you meet will have a medical degree, and every lawyer will have a law degree. Both of these are expensive and require years of post-graduate education. > "- No health or legal risks": a software engineering career will mess your body up bad if you don't intentionally work against that. For those of you who are young and don't believe me (and are programmers, sysadmins, devops, or otherwise spend all day on a computer), come back to me in a decade or so. There's a difference between a job that literally wears your body down (construction, for instance), and a job that can lead to health problems because of a lack of physical activity. There's nothing you can do about the former, while you can address the latter by finding time to exercise a few times a week.

hereforphone 5y ago
I programmed for a long time (decade or more) before I went to engineering school. The difference in understanding is night and day. Like I said, if the programmer is doing relatively low-level tasks, they won't understand their deficiency.
- jonas21 5y ago
  FWIW, the strongest programmer on the team was the guy with the physics degree.
  - hereforphone 5y ago
    That's very possible since he has a strong mathematics background, and has learned to think abstractly.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> There's a difference between a job that literally wears your body down (construction, for instance), and a job that can lead to health problems because of a lack of physical activity. You don't think of yourself as a person who works with their hands, but you do. I had a bad habit of hitting keys on a keyboard really hard (due to a few early keyboards I had to work on). That can wear your body down, too - especially your fingers.

hereforphone 5y ago

I programmed for a long time (decade or more) before I went to engineering school. The difference in understanding is night and day. Like I said, if the programmer is doing relatively low-level tasks, they won't understand their deficiency.

jonas21 5y ago
FWIW, the strongest programmer on the team was the guy with the physics degree.
- hereforphone 5y ago
  That's very possible since he has a strong mathematics background, and has learned to think abstractly.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> There's a difference between a job that literally wears your body down (construction, for instance), and a job that can lead to health problems because of a lack of physical activity. You don't think of yourself as a person who works with their hands, but you do. I had a bad habit of hitting keys on a keyboard really hard (due to a few early keyboards I had to work on). That can wear your body down, too - especially your fingers.