4 ms·

This is an awesome, insightful comment and really highlights what I'm getting at. You're right that they both have weaknesses. What I'm saying is I'm willing t

by noahc 15y ago

This is an awesome, insightful comment and really highlights what I'm getting at. You're right that they both have weaknesses. What I'm saying is I'm willing to go all in on the person who figured out much of it by himself using whatever he had available to him than the person who had a college instructor put together everything for him and then provide additional readings, power points, and web links to all their students. A smart person has to think their way out of a box. A resourceful person can just hack their way out of the box. I don't mind a little mess, so I'll take the resourceful person over the smart person everyday of the week.

randomdata 15y ago
I'm inclined to agree. Since the differentiator is expected drive, one can reasonably conclude that autodidactic is more likely to have it. It is what got them this far. While many graduates also fit that description, it is difficult to filter them from those who graduated only due to social pressures and income dreams. For the theoretical programmers out there, you may recall that the future is independent of the past, given the present. I'm not certain it is worth hiring anyone based on their history. I would look to what they can offer today, and try to discern from that where they are headed in the future. It takes more effort this way, but you get what you give.
achompas 15y ago
You're putting together a collection of false dichotomies in this thread. Let me muddle them up for you: CS departments are not all ivory towers. Consider the following opportunities in my department: (1) TA or grade production-quality software classes taught by Google engineers, with discussion on version control, code style, scalability, etc. (2) research and implement algorithms for diagnosing hospital patients more effectively using ML techniques, (3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers. Software development contains a large set of cool, non-trivial problems. Without formal CS training, you will not get to access those problems. This might change someday, but it is not close to true right now.
- noahc 15y ago
  I really like number 1 and 2. Those both would be awesome examples of getting stuff done in a college setting. Thanks for pointing this out, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure we really disagree that much.
- randomdata 15y ago
  > Without formal CS training, you will not get to access those problems. This is also a false dichotomy. You do not really know what people are working on outside of the college setting. Computer vision is pretty low hanging fruit for anyone to take on. I will grant you that it may be difficult to access medical data outside of the institution, but the same ML techniques can be applied to other data that is relevant. As a hobby farmer, I see all kinds of interesting places for ML on the farm. How many CS students are working with that kind of data?
  - plinkplonk 15y ago
    "Computer vision is pretty low hanging fruit for anyone to take on." Sure, but to be fair to achompas, that isn't what he said. What he said was "(3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers." Pushing the frontier of CV (as distinct from implementing/applying some CV algorithms) is hard to do outside a university or industrial research lab. Without formal CS training, it is very hard (Not impossible, but very hard) to access those problems.
    - randomdata 15y ago
      Hard is quite different to impossible, which is what achompas implied. The beauty of computing is that you are only limited by your imagination. Anyone can accomplish anything they want. You do not need a CS degree to get there – though for some, it might help. My point is that you simply cannot generalize. You have absolutely no idea what talents someone has just by looking at their history. It is simply irrelevant information if you want to hire the best of the best.
      - 15y ago
pork 15y ago
I hate to say this, but you're really starting to sound like you have a chip on your shoulder. You admit that GP has a good point, but then you go ahead and bash one type of person based on some ridiculously flawed notion that an "instructor put together" their knowledge for them. That's as far as I'm going to read this thread.

by noahc 15y ago

randomdata 15y ago

I'm inclined to agree. Since the differentiator is expected drive, one can reasonably conclude that autodidactic is more likely to have it. It is what got them this far. While many graduates also fit that description, it is difficult to filter them from those who graduated only due to social pressures and income dreams. For the theoretical programmers out there, you may recall that the future is independent of the past, given the present. I'm not certain it is worth hiring anyone based on their history. I would look to what they can offer today, and try to discern from that where they are headed in the future. It takes more effort this way, but you get what you give.

achompas 15y ago

You're putting together a collection of false dichotomies in this thread. Let me muddle them up for you: CS departments are not all ivory towers. Consider the following opportunities in my department: (1) TA or grade production-quality software classes taught by Google engineers, with discussion on version control, code style, scalability, etc. (2) research and implement algorithms for diagnosing hospital patients more effectively using ML techniques, (3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers. Software development contains a large set of cool, non-trivial problems. Without formal CS training, you will not get to access those problems. This might change someday, but it is not close to true right now.

noahc 15y ago
I really like number 1 and 2. Those both would be awesome examples of getting stuff done in a college setting. Thanks for pointing this out, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure we really disagree that much.
randomdata 15y ago
> Without formal CS training, you will not get to access those problems. This is also a false dichotomy. You do not really know what people are working on outside of the college setting. Computer vision is pretty low hanging fruit for anyone to take on. I will grant you that it may be difficult to access medical data outside of the institution, but the same ML techniques can be applied to other data that is relevant. As a hobby farmer, I see all kinds of interesting places for ML on the farm. How many CS students are working with that kind of data?
- plinkplonk 15y ago
  "Computer vision is pretty low hanging fruit for anyone to take on." Sure, but to be fair to achompas, that isn't what he said. What he said was "(3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers." Pushing the frontier of CV (as distinct from implementing/applying some CV algorithms) is hard to do outside a university or industrial research lab. Without formal CS training, it is very hard (Not impossible, but very hard) to access those problems.
  - randomdata 15y ago
    Hard is quite different to impossible, which is what achompas implied. The beauty of computing is that you are only limited by your imagination. Anyone can accomplish anything they want. You do not need a CS degree to get there – though for some, it might help. My point is that you simply cannot generalize. You have absolutely no idea what talents someone has just by looking at their history. It is simply irrelevant information if you want to hire the best of the best.
    - 15y ago

pork 15y ago

I hate to say this, but you're really starting to sound like you have a chip on your shoulder. You admit that GP has a good point, but then you go ahead and bash one type of person based on some ridiculously flawed notion that an "instructor put together" their knowledge for them. That's as far as I'm going to read this thread.