Programming

Self Taught Programmer vs College Educsted Programmer?
what's the difference? is the first one better? why?

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One will easily find a job because the diploma is a proof that the student is programmed to obey like a slave.
The other will be jobless and will contribute to free software with free and no bloated code while living with the money given by his communist country.

A lot of self taught programmers lack the theory. That doesn't mean that you can't learn theory by yourself. It's rather that most avoid it because it doesn't seem directly related to writing code (for a living). However you will notice it if you work with self taught programmers for a few months. They don't understand some concepts and make errors which can be avoided. Especially with harder problems I noticed that most self learned programmers try to approach them by trial and error instead of doing some research upfront. It's probably just a habit they never learned

the self thaught programmer will steal the company's code for his personal projects, only the good parts ofc

Depends on what the self taught programmer is studying.

If he's just picking up some C++ for dummies books then he'll probably at least be on the same level as the programmer with the diploma :^)

false. the difference is the college educated programmer will EXPECT to have a job while the self taught will ACTIVELY SEEK one
t. self taught programmer

>A lot of self taught programmers lack the theory.
Are you talking of maths and logic? Math is the only theory you need to be a good programmer and you can easily learn this yourself (go to /sci/ wiki for references).

Self taught programmer avoid mathematics or computer science.
>math isn't important, I never use complex algorithms, automatas are useless.

Becoming eternal code monkey.

I'm a self-taught programmer. I've worked as a developer in a few gigs, so I have a few years of professional experience on top of several years of personal project experiences.
I recently went back to school to get my degree. Here's what I've found so far:

1. I'm far ahead of everyone else in my classes in terms of actual programming. I have general design principles, language syntax, programming logic, etc., all down.
This is really just because of my experience programming, where a lot of the kids in my classes never programmed before freshman year of college.
None of the courses actually challenge you to program all that much (in my experience so far anyway) - they are usually small applications, so no real thought has to go into design patterns.
This usually gets brought up in senior capstone projects where you work on a single assignment for 6 months as part of your "thesis."

2. There's a lot of things I missed in my self-studies.
I've read a few books on theoretical CS, and have done a few Wikipedia dives where I just keep following links to learn about new stuff, but there is still a lot of stuff I missed.
I was lost when I got dropped into some of the Electrical Engineering courses, where you design and build circuits then program the board in Assembly. I had never really studied low-level hardware like that before, so it was completely new to me.

One of the other areas I was lacking was algorithms.
Being self-taught, I learned a few searching and sorting algorithms, but really only used (or even remembered) the ones that were fast and scaled well.
We spent a couple of lectures on a sorting algorithm I had never heard of - one that had terrible performance and scaled terribly - my professor even joked that we would probably never see this algorithm again because it was useless.

im self taught programmer and im pieace of shit

I majored in economics but I got a job as a programmer. True it's a data scientist/database developer position, but I didn't take a single programming course ever.

I was a self taught programmer for many years before studying computer science at university, and this mirrors my experience.

This isn't even a question here in Europe. Computer Science is a subset of Mathematics and unless you're severely autistic you will never be on par with a formally educated CS graduate. I suspect it is different in the US where lower-tier schools do not require you to learn actual theoretic computer science and instead teach you "C++ 101: Programming Course"

One will get a job
The other's resume will be instantly discarded

At least with self taught people, you know they're interested in it enough to put up with the difficulties of learning on your own. And being interested in a subject is one of the best indicators that someone at least has the potential to continue learning and eventually master the subject, even if they possibly have more gaps in their knowledge than a CS grad.

Meanwhile, CS departments and "bootcamps" round the world are filled with credential chasing busybodies that want the money, but are only willing to do the bare minimum to get it because deep down they really don't like programming at all. These are the ones that cause programming interviews to test for stupid obnoxious shit like "fizzbuzz".

But in the end, the vast majority of both camps usually end up as code monkeys, working on questionable products with horrifyingly shitty legacy codebases held together by bubblegum and duct tape, and bending over backwards for inept managers demanding unreasonable deadlines. This has lead to the software industry having ridiculously high churn rates which they conveniently shove under the rug of "high salaries". Thus making our entire modern digital Infrastructure one giant house of cards.

So who cares.

it doesn't matter
the only thing that matters is the person's way of thinking
from experience, I've seen the most retarded people with university diplomas, it really made me question why they are given away so easily.
We had people who said during interviews that they don't understand TCP because it's 'very low level' and even accused us of giving an impossible task when we asked to solve a similar to fizzbuzz task but they were not allowed to use the modulus operator.
Once when we needed to develop high performance server software for a government project one guy suggested using java with http and json for client server interface when we specifically hired him for C++ work.
Well similarly retarded interactions happened with non-educated people, but that's not the point.
These days we actually give a plus when hiring for people who have degrees in math or physics, since the degrees in cs seem to be given out to morons
Also advice for self taught programmers: don't be afraid to start working for minimum wage or even free. You have to show off skill and build up experience, you won't have trouble with getting good pay when you can prove that you know what you're doing

>using the smiley with a carat nose

Latter understands what they are doing. Former is just rigging shit to work.

>knowing to speak but don't knowing to express himself
pleb

>can't tell if doesn't understand what "latter" means, or is if just severely overestimating CS code monkeys

It really depends on who you're trying to work for.

If you want to be a code monkey for Genera MegaCorp Insurance or what have you, you need a degree, but if you're trying to find a place in the meritocracy of silicon valley then being self taught and competent will open a lot of doors for you.

>college educated coders know what they're doing

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>most self learned programmers try to approach them by trial and error instead of doing some research upfront

I've seen CS grads do this as well, retards that don't even attempt to understand the problem and just try to brute force everything.

Are online bachelors and associates degrees valuable enough for me to waste my time on or would that time be better spent learning programming on my own

Going to a real school is valuable for math and science in a structured environment surrounded by helpful professors and students.

Doing an online degree is a waste of time. You could just buy a few books to supplement your personal programming. (The Sup Forums reading list is incredibly well put together)

that was what i assumed to be the case.
im learning plenty just studying on my own, the only reason i would ever consider the degree is simply to put it on a resume. it would be such a large chunk of time wasted for a simple spot on my resume though

Just read and learn on your own:
pastebin.com/kNzNeqet

this list looks useful.
i will begin reading these

>self Taught Programmer X College/uni Educated Programmer
highly passionated individual. Higher chance of being remembered among computer scientist. Tends to be more kind. Has a good sens of ethics and humility.
Notable exemple: richard stallman, bjarne, Inigo Quilez, jim blinn, john mccarthy,...

>self Taught Programmer X made money
Highly passionated individual. lacks common knowledge. Has to rely on being an indie dev. and try to make money to proof he has "experience". He can be a dick but that's because of isolation or something. Your chance of being recognize is kinda low.
notable exemple: notch, john carmack.

>College/uni Educated Programmer
he's able to be motivated to do stuff that isn't necessarily his passion. People that only fit in that category tends to be among the worst programmer. They're not necessarily bad, it's just that some of them are in for the money or has pajeet in their name.Your chance of being recognize is non-existant.
notable exemple: 70- 90%~ of the world programmer

>self Taught Programmer
Worst type of programmer. You can doubt his skill alot. He has no bases and doesn't technically have the motivation to learn since he isn't able to make money out of his skill in a market that is easily 100 time bigger than art. Will be a dick, will be awkward when talking about comp sci. Will tell you that he's working on a project.

Don't get me wrong, even people who are coding for free software will get a minimum of financial remuneration by the non-lucrative organization(or corporation) that owns the free software. In many case they can get hired if the company is large enough.

going to college makes you more kind?

hard to explain but
self-taught have better knowledge of tools and frameworks and are generally better are programming, while college educated have better understand of fundamentals and write cleaner code

>going to college makes you more kind?
in college you suffer and share the suffering with other student. This sentiment of collective suffering makes you kinder. This won't apply to every field of study.

self taught programmers probably start by going directly into programming languages and leave behind the computer science study, such as data structures, algorithms and a bunch of nomenclature

You really want to ask this question on Sup Forums, the board of self-taught programmers?