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Frankly, I think the value of formal education is underrated by both hackers and university professors. CS departments generally have low expectations of their

Frankly, I think the value of formal education is underrated by both hackers and university professors. CS departments generally have low expectations of their students, with the exception of the "Top 5" schools. I have been on either side of this: as a teenager, I was self-taught and learned how to program by writing thousands of lines of code, and in college and grad school, I received a formal education in computer science, but I had to go out and learn more about the topics my courses covered on my own. A formal education is immensely valuable to writing more than just mundane code. The key problem with being self-taught is that it is up to you to find the things you should be learning. It is very easy to miss whole topics that may be interesting or enlightening, or may even change how you think about programming. Here is an example of something I would never have known without a formal education: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_programming It is easy to gloss over it, but this is a completely different way to think about programming. You might not see it used much in the real world, but it opens your mind to a new way to think about problem solving and can help a lot in understanding other things (like model checking or natural language processing). There is also the matter of understanding certain abstract concepts that are very important in both theory and practice. Asymptotic analysis comes to mind here, though even a lot of people with formal educations seem to have trouble with it (probably because they thought their theory courses were a waste of time). Algorithms and data structures are also prominent examples of things that are easy for self-taught programmers to miss, especially those that are not included in their favorite languages' standard libraries. All-in-all, I think the best programmers are those who have both a formal education and who can and do learn on their own. Self-taught programmers usually know their language of choice at a deep level; coupled with a formal education, you can do a lot.

michaelwww 13y ago
> Here is an example of something I would never have known without a formal education (Logic Programming): I wouldn't be so sure about that. I read a blogger who wrote that CSS was a declarative language. Curious, it wasn't 10 minutes later after looking at various programming paradigms on Wikipedia that I was reading about Logic Programming.
etler 13y ago
One argument I hear a lot is that self taught programmers can teach themselves the theoretical stuff later on their own. As you mentioned, one problem is that you wont have the direction. I think some other problems that are often overlooked is that you wont have the drive, or the time. When you're in college, learning is your full time job. You have deadlines and requirements for that learning. All of your time is dedicated to it. If you try to teach yourself these things while working, are you really going to be as dedicated to it as a student can be? In practice, I don't see this happening. Another complaint is that you're not learning the applied skills you'll need in the industry. My view on that is that you have your entire life to work and learn the tools of the trade. You only have one real chance to go to college and learn the theoretical stuff. If you're burnt out on school, by all means, take a few years off, see how the working life is, save some money. But before long you'll have more responsibilities, maybe a family, and no time. The longer you wait, the harder you'll have to work to go back to college.

michaelwww 13y ago

> Here is an example of something I would never have known without a formal education (Logic Programming): I wouldn't be so sure about that. I read a blogger who wrote that CSS was a declarative language. Curious, it wasn't 10 minutes later after looking at various programming paradigms on Wikipedia that I was reading about Logic Programming.

etler 13y ago

One argument I hear a lot is that self taught programmers can teach themselves the theoretical stuff later on their own. As you mentioned, one problem is that you wont have the direction. I think some other problems that are often overlooked is that you wont have the drive, or the time. When you're in college, learning is your full time job. You have deadlines and requirements for that learning. All of your time is dedicated to it. If you try to teach yourself these things while working, are you really going to be as dedicated to it as a student can be? In practice, I don't see this happening. Another complaint is that you're not learning the applied skills you'll need in the industry. My view on that is that you have your entire life to work and learn the tools of the trade. You only have one real chance to go to college and learn the theoretical stuff. If you're burnt out on school, by all means, take a few years off, see how the working life is, save some money. But before long you'll have more responsibilities, maybe a family, and no time. The longer you wait, the harder you'll have to work to go back to college.