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No meaningful disussion can come from this. Other students went to the same school I'm sure. Why are we not seing the same results from all of them or at least
by schmrz 14y ago
No meaningful disussion can come from this.
Other students went to the same school I'm sure. Why are we not seing the same results from all of them or at least from the majority of them? The question whether you should get university education is not an easy one. I'm strugling with it all the time and I am going to an university.
- rayiner 14y ago> Why are we not seing the same results from all of them or at least from the majority of them? The point isn't that Fabrice Bellard isn't special. It's that even a special (clearly brilliant and self-directed) guy like him can arguably benefit from the systematic learning of domain specific information that happens at a university. It could be the case that had Bellard not gone to university, he would have gone to the library and learned all those things on his own, and still built all the things he did. Or, it could be the case that the university exposed him to a ton of readily digestible theoretical knowledge that he wouldn't necessarily have stumbled upon on his own. He's a counter point to guys like Zuck. You don't really need any theoretical knowledge to build something like Facebook. You need a lot of theoretical knowledge to build something like FFMpeg. A university education not only provides a way to learn the necessary theory, but exposes you to a lot of domains of theory which can inspire you to solve problems you might not have thought to tackle, because you find out that there are theoretical tools to help you tackle those problems.
- n3rdy 14y ago> The point isn't that Fabrice Bellard isn't special. It's that even a special (clearly brilliant and self-directed) guy like him can arguably benefit from the systematic learning of domain specific information that happens at a university. You still have to work to benefit from a university. They don't inject knowledge directly into your brain. You have to consciously put in hard effort to learn the material and retain it, instead of making extra room upstairs doing keg stands for a few years.
- incision 14y ago>Or, it could be the case that the university exposed him to a ton of readily digestible theoretical knowledge that he wouldn't necessarily have stumbled upon on his own. I never attended college. I'm entirely self-taught. I've had a successful career. For the first two-thirds of my career I was awfully satisfied with my own ability to assimilate and apply books, docs and discussion to my work - seemingly much faster than anyone I worked with. Eventually, I found myself working on big, unique, urgent problems with a guy who was both college educated and had exceptional ability. For the longest time I'd had ideas without the words to describe them. I could run something past this guy and almost always get a response like "What you're describing here is a..." We ended up having hours of discussions that amounted to a crash course in computer science, all sorts of higher math, history and philosophy. Our talks didn't just teach me directly, they gave me conceptual footholds to make the next logical leaps - completely expanded my horizon. I suddenly realized just how much I didn't know and how hard it is to even know where to look in order to learn. I didn't need a structured education to be effective, but I can certainly see how it would enable an exceptional person to be that much better.
- randomdata 14y agoFabrice has done some amazing things technically, but doesn't strike me as a successful businessman. His seemingly most brilliant work is being given away for free. The Zuckerberg, et. al. point comes from their vast wealth, not their technical chops, countering the idea that college is a requirement for financial success. I don't think anyone would argue that college cannot expand the mind and enable brilliant people to do even more brilliant things. The argument, however, is whether that leads to increased income and access to jobs. The data, even outside of the popular anecdotes, seems to indicate generally not.
- rckrd 14y agoHe went to a institution known for its math, we do see the same kind of results from his peers - just not in computer science.
- Ingaz 14y ago>> we do see the same kind of results from his peers It's interesting. Can you name some of them? With published works