4 ms·

> I also tend to read more papers and technical books I have only met one self-taught person who reads anything like this. My experience is exactly the opposit

> I also tend to read more papers and technical books I have only met one self-taught person who reads anything like this. My experience is exactly the opposite. Most self-taught programmers are great at programming and solving business problems, but tend to be less technical and think academic stuff is a waste of time.

busterarm 3y ago
Funny. It might be the companies that I've worked for but I tend to find with _all programmers_ is that we're all too often focused on the individual problems at hand and their complications and we fail to recognize them for the simple, well-described academic problems that they actually are. Often there's some self-imposed and pointless complication that prevents us from reducing the problem we're working on and we'd be better off changing the constraints than going down the road we're already on. The academic stuff is invaluable, but people only get a small nibble of it in their degree programs. That's why I value the knowledge over the education/process.
- commonlisp94 3y ago
  I agree with that experience, but it's not clear how it relates to the topic we are discussing.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    My argument would be that having the education/degree does not help you correlate the day to day work in the field with what you learned to get that degree. The degree is worth dirt if you can't apply that experience to your job and I think that's the case an above-average amount of the time. So maybe getting the degree isn't necessarily the best path to get into our industry.
    - commonlisp94 3y ago
      > having the education/degree does not help you correlate the day to day work in the field with what you learned I also agree with that. The vast majority just aren't interested or did the minimum to pass classes, without really absorbing it. What I disagree with is the self-taught correlation. The people who can do what you describe overwhelming are academically curious and have degrees. > maybe getting the degree isn't necessarily the best path I think you'll find a similar pattern in all fields. I think what's more in question is the ability of education to transform ingrained aptitudes and interests.
- twic 3y ago
  In my experience, it's very rare that there is a self-imposed and pointless complication that prevents a real problem being reduced to an academically tractable one, and far more common that there is a second-rate programmer on the team who thinks there is.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
I dunno, I’m consistently having to teach PhD folks stuff at FAANG and I didn’t go to college. A lot of them only have a cursory understanding of distributed systems, graph theory, type theory, abstract algebra, compilers, etc.

busterarm 3y ago

Funny. It might be the companies that I've worked for but I tend to find with _all programmers_ is that we're all too often focused on the individual problems at hand and their complications and we fail to recognize them for the simple, well-described academic problems that they actually are. Often there's some self-imposed and pointless complication that prevents us from reducing the problem we're working on and we'd be better off changing the constraints than going down the road we're already on. The academic stuff is invaluable, but people only get a small nibble of it in their degree programs. That's why I value the knowledge over the education/process.

commonlisp94 3y ago
I agree with that experience, but it's not clear how it relates to the topic we are discussing.
- busterarm 3y ago
  My argument would be that having the education/degree does not help you correlate the day to day work in the field with what you learned to get that degree. The degree is worth dirt if you can't apply that experience to your job and I think that's the case an above-average amount of the time. So maybe getting the degree isn't necessarily the best path to get into our industry.
  - commonlisp94 3y ago
    > having the education/degree does not help you correlate the day to day work in the field with what you learned I also agree with that. The vast majority just aren't interested or did the minimum to pass classes, without really absorbing it. What I disagree with is the self-taught correlation. The people who can do what you describe overwhelming are academically curious and have degrees. > maybe getting the degree isn't necessarily the best path I think you'll find a similar pattern in all fields. I think what's more in question is the ability of education to transform ingrained aptitudes and interests.
twic 3y ago
In my experience, it's very rare that there is a self-imposed and pointless complication that prevents a real problem being reduced to an academically tractable one, and far more common that there is a second-rate programmer on the team who thinks there is.

VirusNewbie 3y ago

I dunno, I’m consistently having to teach PhD folks stuff at FAANG and I didn’t go to college. A lot of them only have a cursory understanding of distributed systems, graph theory, type theory, abstract algebra, compilers, etc.