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>If so, do you ever find yourself missing the knowledge about low-level computer science? Let's say, how operating systems and filesystems are built under the c
by nirvana 14y ago
>If so, do you ever find yourself missing the knowledge about low-level computer science? Let's say, how operating systems and filesystems are built under the covers, the internals of database systems, various algorithms that help solve problems quicker, etc.
You seem to be assuming that someone who hasn't gotten a college degree doesn't have this knowledge. I've spent a fair bit of time over the past 4 years reading hacker news. I'd say the demographic of the hacker news commentator is generally a few years out of college. At that age, I knew more about how operating systems and filesystems worked, the internals of databases, and had a bigger collection of algorithms to draw on than the average hacker news commentator does.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who get CS degrees who never programmed a computer before college, and so, for them it is like a profession that they chose, and all their knowledge comes from college. For them, it probably seems baffling that someone right out of high school might get a CS job because they wouldn't know anything, right?
This isn't the case for hackers. Hackers started hacking as soon as they were told what software (or hardware) was and that there was some mechanism that made it work.
Designers don't learn about UX in school (I don't think, maybe I'm wrong).
Part of the reason college doesn't do so well is its serving some imagined "noble" ideal of what people should learn, rather than teaching practical knowledge.
- YuriNiyazov 14y agoWhat I am assuming is that someone who doesn't have a college degree has this knowledge in bits and pieces, accumulated randomly over the years. I don't mean to imply that knowledge accumulated in that way is insufficient in order to be a balls-out startup founder, or have a very high-paying job as a software engineer. I left high school having a lot of programming experience already under my belt, and by then I've read quite a few CS books (the two "programming pearls", and the two "turing omnibus" books), and since then I've met quite a few people like myself, so a large part of what you are saying resonates with me. However, I would argue that every so often there are problems that one encounters in software engineering for which a haphazard, practical education is insufficient, and only a very rigorous, "from the ground-up" education will do. For example, the sort of position that is nowadays advertised as a "data scientist", which is a very complex conglomerate of advanced mathematics and computer science. I've never met someone who is a self-educated, no-college-degree data scientist, or audio-video-photo compression expert, or a computational finance guy. I will readily admit my limited sample, and I would be happy if you proved me wrong. Still - what concerns me is that the general view is that formal education is a waste, and what is consistently left aside is that there are many things that one can do for which a haphazard education is simply not enough.