Technology is not as fast paced as headlines make people think. For web applications, XHR (XMLHttpRequest) came from Microsoft in ~1998 and has essentially been

Technology is not as fast paced as headlines make people think. For web applications, XHR (XMLHttpRequest) came from Microsoft in ~1998 and has essentially been used ad nauseam to do all sorts of dynamically rendering parts of HTML pages for 25 years. Its much cheaper/better than building client side software that has to be deployed and patched across a bunch of OSes. Sure there are patterns and frameworks, etc. that have come (and gone) for the web but the core fundamentals for building a web app are mostly unchanged. What about AI/ML? Companies 20+ years ago built out search engines, I see this as an evolution of that, indexing web content/text and providing more context driven outputs. Some employers value degrees, some don't. Having a degree opens doors or rather you don't get HR/profiling to slam doors in your face because you didn't check the box. My path was CS before Google was a household name (mid 90's). CS was just barely spun off of Math departments. I picked CS because I liked computer games and building PC's and doing stuff with computers was (and still is) fun. I found the CS program beneficial, establishing a core knowledge of how computers work and what happens when you run programs. I'd say if you're in it for a career (aka a lifetime), get a degree. If you're in it as a stepping stone or changing careers or see the salaries and are chasing money, go to a bootcamp or equivalent to get up to speed to be proficient.