Very well put. I would say the opportunity when self taught is that you can focus on the areas or challenges that excite you the most. "Getting close to the m

Very well put. I would say the opportunity when self taught is that you can focus on the areas or challenges that excite you the most. "Getting close to the metal with C" is a good example of someone interested in taking things apart and seeing the gears turning the wheel. I studied CS at university specifically to understand how a machine could make chuckie egg jump or dragon ninja kick. You start with Binary, Machine Learning play with some C or Java and suddenly the magic was more than magic - mathematics. Immerse yourself and enjoy it is the most important thing. Back to the point - agreed - programming and computer science can never be mutually exclusive. Everyone's comments on here have me officially addicted to HN. About time.