In my first programming job, the manager was really busy and asked me to interview a potential candidate who had just graduated from college, don''t remember which one, and said he knew C++.

One of the questions I asked him was, can you write down an example of a class? He said no.

One of my coworkers interviewed a guy who couldn''t write a function to accept two floats as parameters and return their product.

Not trying to make any points, just sharing stories :D.

My opinion:
College and universities are just a piece of sh*t.I am self- taught(9 years experience) and i can see that this is many times better than waiting learning from a course in a college/university.Is a f**king piece of paper and 4 years of "education on computer science" make you a better programmer than someone who started coding from a little age and learned from his own?(Now i am in a university,but i will probably leave it)

[edited by - lone_ranger on March 13, 2003 12:39:26 PM]

I think, the biggest difference between self-taught and learned in school/at university just is the fact, that, when you teach stuff yourself you''ll mostly just do things, which you like, and which are thrilling/satisfying to you...

Schools and universities might not give you THAT specialised knowledge of a few subjects, but you will get in touch with much more stuff in the whole IT-world...

I thought I would chime in on this. First of all, I am self-taught, did not attend college, and in fact, did not even finish high school. My highest official education is a GED (High school equivalency).

I have done very well working as a professional developer. (120k+ per year is my current salary, so judge for your self whether or not there is a cap to what self-taught developers can make) I have been developing for over twenty years (I started when I was eleven) and have been developing as a professional for 7 years.

I have lead projects with individuals that have doctoral degrees in computer science working under me. In those situations I have always had the complete respect of my peers, no matter what their level education was.

In my experience, having a degree is good for one thing, and that is getting your foot in the door, but, after you have the job, what counts is your determination and work ethic.

I don''t for a second buy this bullsh*t that someone with a degree is generally better that someone without. It depends totally on the individual. I have worked with people who have doctorates in CS that couldn''t code there way out of a wet paper bag. I have also worked with people who have an associate’s degree or no degree what so ever, that made me feel small and insignificant.

A degree should not mean any-thing more than "I have studied the subject", and should never be a sole determination of whether some one will get a job. Don''t get me wrong; I am not bashing getting a degree. There are definite advantages to getting a degree beyond learning how to code.

When people go to school they must work within a system with deadlines, so you get practical experience with prioritizing what you want to accomplish. You often have to work in group situations, so you learn good team skills. You also tend to have a more rounded exposure, not just to development related subjects, but other subjects, like the sciences, arts, humanities, math, and literature. These are all things that can be applied in a working environment. BUT, it is also important to note that some people get similar experiences, just in the course of living their lives, and through pursuit of their interests.

Beyond software development, I am an avid science buff, and I love to read both fiction and non-fiction. I am a very social person and have always been able to get along well with people. These are all things that help me in my job. Some people are molded by the college experience; others get it from life experience.

I guess after all of this ranting, and rambling, the point I am trying to make is, judge people on there skills and work ethic, and not solely on whether or not they can produce a piece of paper with the name of a university on it.

I agree that programming skill depends entirely on the person. I''ve worked on projects where my partners were completely oblivious to what was going on and I wondered how they got through prior classes (three cheers for affirmative action). It is my opinion, however, that someone coming out of a respectable university (known for engineering degrees, rather than, say, farming or culinary arts) will be better prepared for a career in CS than a self-taught individual. Say what you may, but I haven''t seen anything to prove otherwise.

---
K-1 Productions: Come visit us here.

ok, so i normally lurk but i''m going to stick my 2c worth in here.

firstly, i feel for Nehe, being broke is never good. on the other hand we all have to make our decisions about what we want. we can''t have everything - we can''t live where we want, work where we want and earn what we want. We have to choose whats important. On the other hand it would be great if he could find a way to make money - the book suggestion sounds like a plan. I''ve read a few with less useful content than his site. Plus i''m sure we''d all buy it right?

I think some people are being little bit unfair towards people with qualifications. People with qualifications are not automatically incapable of being good programmers. I''d like to think more than 90% were capable of making good programmers too.
I''m also a little intrigued no one seems to have picked up on the fact that many software companies ask for applicants with physics or maths qualifications.
When i asked one why, they told me it was because they were not particulary bothered about how much programming knowledge someone came to them with. It''d be no good to them in 5 years.

Instead they wanted to be sure the person was capable of *thinking* the right way to program. When a company takes on a junior programmer, they are investing in someone they hope will be with them for a good portion of their career. They won''t be expecting vast amounts of brilliant code to flow forth from every junior programmer. They don''t want to know that someone managed to learn the techniques that are in use today, they want to know they can learn the ones that will be in use in a few years, which in the computer industry will probably be radically different. In their experience, they felt mathematicians and physicists fitted the bill best.

Naturally, everyone is different. But don''t sit back with the "f*ck college, i don''t need no stinking qualifications" attitude. Its a good way to show your not afraid to work and be challenged. Plus, college is a blast. Anyone who dosn''t go when they get the chance is crazy.

hmm... this is rather long. sorry, i didn''t mean to preach. hope your all patient readers

and i appear to have been beaten to it. sorry. knew i shouldn;t have stopped to eat

Just thought I''d add something - I''m pretty much self-taught programming wise and I''ve gone to university so I''ve been on both sides. Self-taught is good because it shows you actually want to do stuff than just depend on the degree, but with a degree you also learn a bunch as well. In my 4 years, I barely learned about coding a specific language but did learn about a lot of theory and about most of the other types of languages like lisp, c, pascal, etc.

Along with the comp sci theory stuff, I also took a lot of sociology, psych, math, and a little of everything else. So even though it might have been a waste since I didn''t learn anything relative to "Making games", I feel that it did make me more rounded knowledge wise than in my self-taught days. So if you are willing to always learn something extra, I figure you''re already a step ahead than someone who wants a job given to them. My thoughts anyway...

Luigi
www.lp23.com

I''m on my first year in college, but I''m taking the second year classes and so far I havent learned a single thing except for a few obscure optimizations that might gain you a 0.1% speed increase, if that much. So far in my data structures class we''ve done packed arrays, linked lists, and trees and the only thing we''ve done that I didn''t know how to do was reballance a tree, and that took me all of 5 minutes to figure out on the new while the teacher spent almost 2 hours explaining it (and I wouldn''t be surprised if we go over it some more next class period even though he already explained the entire algorithm). Asselmber isn''t anything new either.

I think the any problem people have with ''self-taught'' programmers exist because some people consider themselves programmers after they read "How to program in C++ in 27 years". ''Real'' self-taught progrogrammers know how to do more than just follow tutorials and call it their own code.

so Extrarius, if you are so genious wtf are you doing in school ?