Posterous: I went to etc., can I still work for you?

http://magnificentbastard.com/posts/ask-the-mb-windsor-knot

Oh, wait.

Micah, that's fine and congratulations. But, uh, do you really think that your request for a job deserved >30 points and a hit on the first page? Meanwhile the very interesting Project 10^100 link has 19 points and is falling off rapidly?

And this isn't the first time Posterous-related contentless posts have shown up on the first page: http://kirindave.tumblr.com/post/50264813/the-problem-tm-wit...

I don't have anything against you, but if everyone did what you just did, Hacker News would be worse than useless. And crazily enough we can't seem to flag your post down. I'm baffled why so many vote for this story, but your job hunt is not "news" nor is it something that a vast majority of hackers should care about.

b) Joining Posterous is actually a cool way to avoid bad culture because you'd have a key hand in creating the what the culture would become. Say if you joined us at Posterous -- it would be you, me and Sachin, making great software and building a great company.

So, how about it? =)

What college did you go to?

I sometimes have similar reservations about companies that list arbitrary experience requirements too, especially when they're clearly just going off some industry norm. That's just me tho. YMMV.

To feel a sense of true accomplishment as an architect, physicist, or biologist you generally need something to happen that can be completely out of reach: erect a building or collide particles. Writing code had a profound effect on me when I was eight. I realized that me, sitting at home and banging away on my keyboard, I had potentially the same power as scientists and corporations with much, much larger resources than me. The fact that a few guys in their early twenties can compete with multi-billion dollar corporations is not to be taken lightly, and isn't exactly shared by many other vocations and industries. Not to mention the existence of an open community, willing to share methods and hacks.

Also, when someone codes a very cool tool or program, many can appreciate it; even if they don't understand it. It's hard to say the same about math or physics theorems.

Basically, the notion of an ivory tower is less evident in programming than in other fields.

I think the major difference is that in each of the fields you quoted, they only place to actually learn the skill is in the university classroom. The knowledge being passed on is hidden and selective. The same is not true with computer science. (Interesting though, that with things such as MIT Open Course Ware we may see this change in the future)

More and more, a college degree has gone from being a symbol of educational merit to being a caveat against absolute stupidity. It's lost all its original meaning.

I often see university being quoted as "showing that you can finish something/work hard to achieve a goal". Often, this line is spouted by those whose only achievement in life is that degree. It's simply not an accurate measure of anything, but it's the only thing in that a person in that position can relate to.

As somebody that spent my early 20's slogging through mud and being responsible for the lives of 8 men while surrounded by explosives and live ordinance, I personally find the argument that I didn't drink like a fish and attend a few classes hungover and therefore don't have a commitment to finishing what I started insulting.

I think the reason is this: programming is much easier to teach yourself than any of the others. And the reason is this: in programming you know when you're wrong.

You can spend three years reading textbooks on physics, or watching physics lectures on youtube, but you're likely to misunderstand some of it, and partially understand other bits of it. (Part of the difficulty for me in learning, say, quantum mechanics or relativity was the problem of unlearning misconceptions I'd picked up by reading popular science type books in my teens.) Without a bunch of professors sitting around to correct you when you're wrong, and point out the gaps in your knowledge, you'll never really understand it (and even if you do, you won't be sure if you do or not). That's the main value you get at university: some smart guys who sit around telling you you're wrong.

In programming, on the other hand, you don't need this. You get more-or-less immediate feedback when you're wrong because the code either won't compile or produces the wrong results. This is what makes programming one of the easiest things to teach yourself.

Computer Programming !== Computer Science

That's not to say they don't overlap in theory or in practice of either. However, the opinion held by one depends on the work (or play) that they do.

If you mostly build blogs, consumer apps, desktop apps, scripts, then you spend most of your time structuring programs, and occasionally have to delve into algorithms. I suspect you don't think a CS degree is required.

If you mostly do computer vision, AI, image processing, databases, networking, then you probably spend most of your time fiddling with algorithms and less time structuring and designing programs. I suspect you're more likely to think a CS degree is required you do.

Not that one is better than another. Just different experience in what one does with a computer gives different perceptions. Game programmers seem to break the mold.

And if you do scientific programming, you think CS and programming is a tradesman's job, and your program is one long main() nested 11 levels deep with if/else and case statements. (har har)

I know plenty of electrical engineers who are likewise self taught.

Compared to biology, zoology, etc, where the work is by nature far more theoretical, and you're screwed if you never studied it academically.

That being said, there is a side of programming that is theoretical, where having a degree matters - and that's the fundamental, pure math level research that's being done in CS. But let's be honest, the VAST majority of programmers don't have jobs like that.

I think Computer Science has the same gravitas as the other professional fields you mention but that isn't the mainstream concept of what computer programming is all about...

Building computer programs is much more akin to other acts of creation. People don't really require artists or authors to have degrees in their respective fields.

People can and do start painting/writing/programming without any academic qualifications. These same people frequently give up after a short time because becoming a master of such fields takes a lot of work.

That said, computer programming is about the only such field where unexperienced practitioners of the art can make a decent living (e.g. they are paid to practice).

The problem with your question is that your focusing on the word 'science'. Math, Physics, Biology, and other sciences tend to increase in difficulty as the general knowledge increases. More discoveries equals more knowledge.

Computer Science is more akin to Music, Art and Literature. Its something Humans created to advance Humans. These things all get easier when methods for creating Music, Art, and Literature get easier. These things are not searching for a truth, or one great theory or proofs. They search for beauty, elegance, and a pleasing aesthetic for humans.

Computer Science is called science cause it involves math, physics and history but really the act of programming is akin to art or literature then actually researching.

Think of it this way. How hard was it 200 years ago to pick up and learn a musical instrument? How hard is it now? Programming used to be more difficult now what languages are becoming more popular? Ruby, Python, Java, and C# these are simple languages with simple syntax allowing you to do very powerful techniques that where hard before.

I think there are more than a few people without specifically relevant degrees doing things in those fields...

Anyway, the difference is that programming is a practical craft done for cash. The question is whether you can get paid to program without a degree, and the answer is yes. Those other fields are more exclusively academic, so you need to satisfy the arbitrary requirements of academia. If there were a big demand for "physics type work" across the private sector there would be plenty of people doing it without physics degrees.

In other professions, they'd have titles like: lab assistant, chemical engineer, chemist.

In CS, they just have CS. So people talk about the minimal requirements to fall into that (overly broad) label.

By and large programmers solve problems. If you can solve problems well enough they'll pay you. They may pay you more when they see that magical degree on your resume, but that doesn't mean you can solve their problem any better than the person without a degree. Likewise if by the time you are 30-35 you can be at or near 6 figures the actual pay difference you could earn matters less and less.

There is a lot of value in a formal education in computer science or software engineering. So much so that I am tempted to go and attempt to get a degree in one or the other. But it isn't so I can work in the field. There are so many lazy people that if you just show up and dig ditches you'll find work and become important to the company. If you think a degree (or even the ability to do things text-book right) means anything to a firm that just needs an apt to store customer contacts than you are fooling yourself. I doubt I could ever work at Google, but I really don't care that much about missing out on that rat race.

Why is that? Because programming is to CS as being a mechanic is to mechanical engineering. I started rebuilding cars with my dad as a kid, and I started programming in middle school. All my CS assignments tap those skills I learned but none of the mechanical engineering assignments tap my mechanical skills.

That said, I will probably be doing more CS than ME after college.

The general idea is that for the most part, programming and hacking are nothing like a science. They are much more like painting, etc. You learn by doing.

4 years of school isn't going to impart upon you the magical ability to paint a masterpiece, just as it isn't going to teach you to be a good coder. You might get the fundamentals out of it necessary to make it easier to do either, but that's about it.

It entirely depends upon your approach, but my experience has been that the best programmers I've worked with don't have compsci degrees. They are self taught - they learned by doing, acquired gobs of hands on experience, brain dumps from smarter peers and sucked up content online and in books.

And going toe to toe against the "Degreed" programmers there was no contest. They were smarter, more focused and better able to handle the task because they learned what they NEEDED, rather than what the school taught them.

That's not to say people with degrees are useless, or by definition have been fleeced or anything else.

The majority of software development doesn't require anything special that you magically acquire with a degree. Business logic can be acquired on-the-job, but it's the core skillset that's important.

I am also an undegreed person, and what I found was that school bored me - I could be out coding, and getting my hands dirty instead. A lot of the others I've spoken to had similar experiences.

Every so often at the job, I'll come to a problem and think, "if only I knew all that algorithms and data structures jazz I could solve this much more quickly". But to be honest, those moments don't come more than a few times a year.

1. Things change at a much faster rate. As theoretically useful it is to pick up a text book from the 70s, it's not going to provide you with the practical on the job experience needed to work in, say, Ruby on Rails.

2. There's not as many codified ways of working. This means there's a much larger reliance on the 'talent' of the individuals working in the field.

The inability of current degrees at predicting the actually efficiency of the programmers explains their lack of credibility.

The day a degree will correlate with skills in computing, that degree will be needed.

The reason why current degrees don't match industry needs is because what is taught is irrelevant for the job, probably because it is taught to the wrong people.

There is a paper about a test to determine who will succeed at programming. That test points out that a special ability is required. That ability is related to systemizing.

The usefulness of that ability is recent, much as computers. This explains why the academic system hasn't embraced it yet.

I have, however, found that a college degree in general, regardless of the field, is often a good proxy for someone's communication skills. Someone with a degree from a "good" school is, in my experience, more likely to be a clear thinker/writer/talker that someone without a degree or with a degree from a middle-tier school, regardless of their ability to code. I don't want to hazard a guess as to which way the causal arrow points there, but it's definitely a pretty clear trend I've noticed from interviewing several dozen candidates over the last few years.

...but that's just a crazy guess on my behalf.

* The tools to teach yourself are mostly free, for one. If you can invest a few hundred for a computer and have an internet connection (not entirely necessary), you're on board.

* Being so new, Computer Science and Software Engineering have nowhere near the academic clout of these other disciplines for which curricula have been refined for quite some time. Think of it this way: How much woud you have valued a doctor's certification in 1650, or even 1850, compared to today? I don't think that very many people really trust a CS degree in the same way that they do a law or medical one.

* There's a lot to learn, but you can begin to be productive wth very little knowledge of programming. The nature of programming lends the discipline to a master-apprentice style of training over the highly theoretical.

The average CS department would flunk out most of their students, whither away, and die if they demanded the level of ability that MIT or Berkeley (for example) demand. It would be better for the industry as a whole if this were to happen, but not for the instructors teaching in those average CS departments.

Top schools can afford to be demanding because they have talented people trying to get in. Top schools can afford to teach theory and start with Scheme, because their students have some trust in them. If Unknown U's CS department started with SICP and Scheme, a bunch of their students would go "This is useless!" and leave, so they use Java.

As it stands, a motivated self learner who buys and reads the textbooks used by top schools is likely to end up knowing far more CS than the average person with a CS degree. Of course, this same motivated self learner, if they got a CS degree, would probably also end up knowing far more CS than the average person with a CS degree. Net result? You need to judge each individual on their own merits, and most CS degrees won't give you any shortcuts.

Ironically, the PC eliminated the need for a CS degree.

It could well be that the value of a CS degree isn't a linear effect but an interaction: it makes the best programmers better, but doesn't do much to lift the median.

Eventually over time it will grow more regulated and structured. There will come a point where to improve the lot of programmers the industry will welcome regulation and certification.

They will grandfather in the self taught but slam the door shut on those coming in later. Course at that time programming will become decidedly less interesting and those searching for opportunity will migrate to another new emerging field.

Programs are just concrete implementations of such models.

A software developer should study computer science (I dont care for a degree) else he/she is a programmer. Designing software is hard and lack of computer science skills make it even harder.

- Hal Abelson

I would also recommend the first minutes of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQLUPjefuWA