4 ms·

Although not entirely necessary or not guaranteeing the skills and expertise, a somewhat scientific (or engineering if you prefer) background is definitely more

Although not entirely necessary or not guaranteeing the skills and expertise, a somewhat scientific (or engineering if you prefer) background is definitely more probable to give solid foundations for a programmer. I am guessing companies would prefer someone with a scientific background too. Perhaps a degree in Computer Science specifically is not a prerequisite, that's certainly debatable. In particular, once you have some foundations on mid/advanced mathematics and logic I guess you can catch up with software systems and languages pretty quickly, depending of course on your ability to learn and talent, thus becoming self-taught on software engineering.

randomdata 13y ago
Growing up on the farm and being able to work directly along side my father and grandfather, I remember being encouraged to solve engineering-like problems, of which you'll find many on the farm, along with them at a fairly young age. I sometimes wonder if higher education has become, in many ways, an attempt to substitute for that kind of mentorship that is so often lost in our now predominately urban society?
- gpsarakis 13y ago
  Mentorship is not lost. In fact it is expanding. How many conferences, training workshops can one attend or how many blog articles & tutorials are we reading on a daily basis? Nevertheless, people tend to reject theoretical knowledge or value it more over practical. This can prove to be disastrous as well :). Although some people have a fair grasp of machinery, imagine someone self-taught building their own reaping machine for your farm, would you try it or would you trust better someone with a more engineering background?
  - randomdata 13y ago
    You are right. I was thinking at a young age though. How many people are working with professionals in a given field while still in elementary school? In fact, in many places there are laws against working with those people at such an age, often with farming being the only exception. Adults do have more options, including college, which is possibly the de-facto standard to make up for what I suggest is lost as a child. > imagine someone self-taught building their own reaping machine for your farm, would you try it or would you trust better someone with a more engineering background? If you look at the history of the farm equipment manufacturers, they all pretty much started on farms to solve the problems of the farms, built by the farmers. Today, in the well established market, you do not really know who is building the products. They might be engineers, they might not be. Nobody asks - nobody cares. Aside from nobody using reaping machines anymore, if someone self-taught brought a new reaping machine onto the market, I'd certainly evaluate it. It is not automatically any worse than anything else available. Some of the agriculture products built by big-name manufactures (and presumably fully trained engineers) are laughably bad to begin with, so the bar isn't necessarily high anyway. Today, it doesn't make economic sense for a farmer to build a machine from scratch, but farm-built modifications to production equipment is very common. While some farmers are professional engineers, farmers come from all walks of life. It doesn't really seem strange at all to be building that kind of thing without formal training. It is just part of the job.

randomdata 13y ago

Growing up on the farm and being able to work directly along side my father and grandfather, I remember being encouraged to solve engineering-like problems, of which you'll find many on the farm, along with them at a fairly young age. I sometimes wonder if higher education has become, in many ways, an attempt to substitute for that kind of mentorship that is so often lost in our now predominately urban society?

gpsarakis 13y ago
Mentorship is not lost. In fact it is expanding. How many conferences, training workshops can one attend or how many blog articles & tutorials are we reading on a daily basis? Nevertheless, people tend to reject theoretical knowledge or value it more over practical. This can prove to be disastrous as well :). Although some people have a fair grasp of machinery, imagine someone self-taught building their own reaping machine for your farm, would you try it or would you trust better someone with a more engineering background?
- randomdata 13y ago
  You are right. I was thinking at a young age though. How many people are working with professionals in a given field while still in elementary school? In fact, in many places there are laws against working with those people at such an age, often with farming being the only exception. Adults do have more options, including college, which is possibly the de-facto standard to make up for what I suggest is lost as a child. > imagine someone self-taught building their own reaping machine for your farm, would you try it or would you trust better someone with a more engineering background? If you look at the history of the farm equipment manufacturers, they all pretty much started on farms to solve the problems of the farms, built by the farmers. Today, in the well established market, you do not really know who is building the products. They might be engineers, they might not be. Nobody asks - nobody cares. Aside from nobody using reaping machines anymore, if someone self-taught brought a new reaping machine onto the market, I'd certainly evaluate it. It is not automatically any worse than anything else available. Some of the agriculture products built by big-name manufactures (and presumably fully trained engineers) are laughably bad to begin with, so the bar isn't necessarily high anyway. Today, it doesn't make economic sense for a farmer to build a machine from scratch, but farm-built modifications to production equipment is very common. While some farmers are professional engineers, farmers come from all walks of life. It doesn't really seem strange at all to be building that kind of thing without formal training. It is just part of the job.