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On December 17 2012 00:15 supereddie wrote:I am a bit baffeld by all the recommendations to get a degree in math, physics or enigneering. Depending on what field you want to work in, it can ofcourse be handy to have some knowledge but is isn't a requirement as far as I am concerned. What really matters is your ability to solve problems (any problem). To be a developer is mostly about 'how do I tell the computer to do this' - which is problem solving. Ofcourse math, physics and engineering also teach problem solving but not as the primary focus.The primary math/physics/engineering skills are largely not relevant to problem solving skills. Depending on what you want to do, you might want to learn algorithms for searching or indexing or whatever, but you can 'learn' those from the internet (as most programming problems have already been done and shared) - no math degree needed. My points of importance: - Problem solving: find a way to work around/solve a given problem
- Problem analyzing: analyse a problem as to why it is a problem/doesn't work as intended, then solve it
- Problem prediction: before you even start programming, think about possible problems that might occur later on and account for it
- Be able to think in abstracts/concepts/ideas so you can contribute to the team
- Enjoy learning new stuff and figuring out how/why things work
Focussing on a specific language is nice, but not needed as the above points are relevant to any language.
Can't say that I agree, every "interesting" problem I ever have had to solve in programming was basically a reformulation of a problem from graph theory or some other branch of discrete math...
Though I must say that the more I delve into software development, the fewer interesting problems i find =(
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Coding an enterprise level software has nothing to do with CS or Math or algorithms or anything else, if you were good at making LEGOs you will be a good programmer
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On December 16 2012 18:18 xavra41 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 20:00 carlfish wrote:On December 14 2012 08:18 xavra41 wrote:
Okay, so I Went through a giant 1500 page java book and did a big project involving 2k lines of code with gui and sql connection to a server to store/retrieve information. Does anyone know what the next step is in finding a job? Sorry to be Mr Bad News Bear, but "finding a job" is probably still a long way in your future. Whatever position you go for, whether it be an introductory position or an internship, paid or unpaid, you're going to be competing against freshly minted college grads and people who have been coding as a hobby since they were thirteen. Many of the candidates will be both. Unless you can take advantage of some kind of personal 'in' with a company that will get you an internship, your resume isn't going to make the first cut right now. My advice for your next step: learn more stuff. Build more stuff. Use your Java to write an online tool that people can use to schedule and run Starcraft tournaments or promote custom maps. Teach yourself enough Python to build a website for your friends to plan parties on. Teach yourself enough C to build a desktop app that can browse and embed streams from all the different streaming sites. Keep learning stuff. Keep building stuff. Code for the sheer fun of coding, because writing awesome code is the most satisfaction you can have alone in a room with your pants on. Eventually you will amass a big enough body of work that you can go to a company and say “I have no formal qualifications, but look, I've made stuff that people use!” That might not get you a job at a boring company that just ticks off boxes on a recruitment checklist, but it will get you noticed at the kind of interesting company that values people who have proven they can deliver real, working software. Haha that is not the answer I want to hear but thanks for the response  . So should I learn multiple languages or just master one? How far will an associates degree take me? I am working on my own desktop applications right now just for the fun but I really need a source of income atm. I might have to drop this stuff and work somewhere that will take anybody.
You want a broad level of experience. Your language will likely be replaced in 5-10 years or at least changed significantly. You want to be able to hop to the next technology as needed, rather than being bogged down only knowing a single language. Ruby and Ruby on Rails, for instance, have exploded in popularity and demand in the past few years. They are among the highest paid positions on average (iirc >90k).
On December 16 2012 19:52 phar wrote:
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) software dev / programming is not a get rich quick scheme. It's a work really hard for 5-10 years and then get moderately to very well paid scheme.
I don't know about all that. Entry level software development positions are generally >45k, often >50k. That's pretty good money for a little to no experience recent graduate.
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A rather light question compared to what's been discussed on the previous pages. I'm 17 and still in school, I've kind of dropped gaming after many many years of constant playing, and I'm faced with, periodically, quite some free time.
Knowing the basics of HTML/CSS/Java etc seems to be good knowledge to have, and some of my friends make some extra money (not much, but atleast equivalent of any work available at my age) by creating websites for companies etc.
I'm looking for a site that will basically teach me every step of creating a website of my own. http://www.w3schools.com is great, but I want a ''bigger picture guide'' if that makes any sense..
Summary: Some site that tells me what to do with what I've learned ^_^
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I have a degree in mathematics, but I worked as an intern for about 2-3 years doing web applications programming during my undergraduate years part time & during summers. Upon graduating, I got placed fairly quickly into a development position at a major corporation doing data analysis & database development (my main interest) and am currently getting paid 75k/yr. According to my employers, the biggest things they liked about me were a) my experience b) my extracurricular activities (student leadership etc), and my friendly demeanor & communication skills.
Currently I'm leading the development for a major project, with almost complete freedom to decide how to proceed. All the details regarding UML domain-modeling, functional requirements etc I'm just picking up by studying texts on it in my spare time. I'm probably going to pick some technologies that I can get official certifications completed with in my personal time, if there are no other good reasons to distinguish; so MS SQL server for MCSE over Oracle 11g, etc.
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
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On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
Read: Don't get a CS degree from a bad school.
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On December 17 2012 04:12 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
Read: Don't get a CS degree from a bad school.
I went to one of the top canadian engineering schools, thanks for being a rude prick, though.
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On December 17 2012 04:13 Fission wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 04:12 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
Read: Don't get a CS degree from a bad school. I went to one of the top canadian engineering schools, thanks for being a rude prick, though.
I went to one of the US's best music schools, does that mean their physics department was awesome? You just described a horrible CS department. Obviously if your university had a great engineering program, that's great for its engineering students, but either you're describing the CS program inacurrately, you only took a couple of 100-level classes and don't know what you're talking about, or whatever magic is at work in the engineering school failed to rub off on the CS program. In the last case, which assumes your description is accurate, you went to a pretty bad CS school, and I wouldn't recommend getting a degree from such an institution. A degree from a good CS school I would very strongly recommend.
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On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree".
My opinion is likely biased in some ways as I'm doing a software engineering degree at a game school, but the general opinion I've seen is that, unless you're very good and do coding in your own time, a CS degree doesn't actually teach you how to write code. One of my tutors last year had a CS degree, got into the industry, and then discovered that while he knew all the theory, he didn't actually know how to write any code. This would follow on with what I've heard elsewhere, where it takes up to 6 months for a graduate to actually be useful, and not costing time.
I worked with another guy a few months ago, who had a CS masters, had spent some time in games studio, and felt his degree was worthless for game dev. I was talking with my current boss at my part time job a while ago, (I work part time for a company that does .net based web programming), and he mentioned an intern he had some time ago, who came highly referenced by her tutors, but upon starting work she didn't even know what a for loop was.
Conversely, pretty much all of the jobs I've seen advertised required a CS degree or equivalent degree. Locally, I should be able to get a job fairly easily at a games studio, as my school has a pretty good reputation, but having that bit of paper at the end would likely give me a bit better chance at a job overseas, which is where I want to go at some point.
I'm also interested in knowing if anyone else has heard of the Fizzbuzz test? Pretty much everyone in my class looked at it and thought it was pretty easy and could be done in a few minutes no problem, so it was pretty surprising to find that only 40% of people passed.
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On December 17 2012 04:28 Soan wrote:I'm also interested in knowing if anyone else has heard of the Fizzbuzz test? Pretty much everyone in my class looked at it and thought it was pretty easy and could be done in a few minutes no problem, so it was pretty surprising to find that only 40% of people passed.
I'd never heard of it, but I think it's a pretty good interview question. Anyone that can't solve that problem in a few minutes is probably not going to cut it in my team, and it's a complex enough problem to allow a follow-up discussion about optimization, code style, or elaborations of the problem.
I am not at all surprised to find that only 40% of applicants for a programming position passed. I've worked with a lot of people who were working as computer programmers but were not actually capable of designing basic algorithms to solve simple problems. We require all our applicants to be proficient in database design, and a majority of applicants aren't able to design a normalized database to catalogue a record collection.
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On December 17 2012 04:13 Fission wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 04:12 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
Read: Don't get a CS degree from a bad school. I went to one of the top canadian engineering schools, thanks for being a rude prick, though.
Way to contribute positively to the discussion, you rude prick.
The classes you took sucked; you're not the best of the best nor a gift from god. The reason you had an easy time was the classes fault, not yours.
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Hyrule19257 Posts
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On December 17 2012 05:09 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 04:13 Fission wrote:On December 17 2012 04:12 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On December 17 2012 04:10 Fission wrote:
I don't really get what all the fuss is about "getting a CS degree". I took a bunch of cs courses in university for easy credits due to my experience, and I found the courses to be comically trivial and mostly worthless. Tons of emphasis on completely unrealistic nonsense, no talk of coding design or practices, professors who had never worked as programmers etc. There were no courses on many widely used industry standard technologies. There were no .net courses, no database applications courses (just theory), zip. Just shitloads of C, C++, and a few java courses. The "really hard" algorithms and analysis compsci courses were laughably easy compared to honors real analysis or any high level honors math classes.
Read: Don't get a CS degree from a bad school. I went to one of the top canadian engineering schools, thanks for being a rude prick, though. Way to contribute positively to the discussion, you rude prick. The classes you took sucked; you're not the best of the best nor a gift from god. The reason you had an easy time was the classes fault, not yours.
If he went to McGill, yeah, their CS program isn't going to matter much. If he went to Waterloo, which has a good CS program, then it would be relevant. If he went to Toronto, then it's hard to say.
Also kind of pointless pointing out that you've gone to the best x school since the rankings on all of those are so fuzzy already so they don't mean anything...
My impression was that it is unnecessary to go to university for a CS degree simply because the classes don't offer you anything that you'll realistically need to program in real life. The discussion so far seems to be saying that you need the degree to be considered for jobs, so is it the piece of paper that's more useful or the education behind it?
I mean, of course the education is useful, but isn't it possible to be a great programmer without that CS degree? Only a couple seem to have commented saying you won't be considered for as many jobs without the specific CS degree.
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The "big fuss" people are bringing up about a CS degree is because one guy back a few pages said that you'd be better off NOT getting a CS degree if you want to get a programming/software dev job. That's all, someone was wrong on the internet, and it takes pages to exhaust that subject's posting capital.
The piece of paper gets your foot in the door (interviews), after that all that matters is your ability to solve interview questions while behaving like a twat.
On December 17 2012 01:36 Craton wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2012 19:52 phar wrote:
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) software dev / programming is not a get rich quick scheme. It's a work really hard for 5-10 years and then get moderately to very well paid scheme. I don't know about all that. Entry level software development positions are generally >45k, often >50k. That's pretty good money for a little to no experience recent graduate.
Yes, but that's with at least 4+ years of studying for a CS degree. We're talking about the job potential for someone who has no CS degree and no actual relevant work experience.
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I'm speaking from a biased standpoint since I'm nearing the end of my computer science phd program, but there is a reason people attach so much importance to cs degrees. The difference between someone who has a lot of experience coding and someone who deeply understands what makes things efficient and what kinds of problems are doable, from both a mathematical perspective (complexity theory) and real-world perspective (what are the limitations of the hardware currently available) is crucial.
No one that has learned everything on their own is going to take the time to build up this kind of deep understanding and/or find the right resources to do so efficiently and thoroughly. They may be able to code simple things very quickly, or may be able to code large projects which consist of a lot of simple tasks... but they are going to run into trouble when they run into a problem that is actually hard, and requires inventing new tricks on the spot to solve.
Anyway, I'm not saying that everyone who has a degree in CS is a good programmer. On the contrary, the honest truth is that most people that have CS degrees are poor programmers. But almost everyone I know that has "taught themself" programming are among the worst programmers I've met. I would hesitate to even offer someone an interview for a programming position of any kind if they didn't have a CS degree. I would consider those with math or engineering degrees
though.
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On December 17 2012 13:28 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
No one that has learned everything on their own is going to take the time to build up this kind of deep understanding and/or find the right resources to do so efficiently and thoroughly. They may be able to code simple things very quickly, or may be able to code large projects which consist of a lot of simple tasks... but they are going to run into trouble when they run into a problem that is actually hard, and requires inventing new tricks on the spot to solve.
The information is readily available. You can get all the books you need off amazon or the library. The knowledge is not exclusive to the elite schools.
Very easy to look at curriculums, consult experts and know what you need to learn. You're also overstating the domain of problems that the theory of CS solves. There isn't just one kind of difficult problem where you need the fanciest, most esoteric, most correct math. The fact that self-taught people don't gravitate towards these skills could be a statement about the real-world value of these skills (or it could be their mistake.)
Anyway, I'm not saying that everyone who has a degree in CS is a good programmer. On the contrary, the honest truth is that most people that have CS degrees are poor programmers. But almost everyone I know that has "taught themself" programming are among the worst programmers I've met. I would hesitate to even offer someone an interview for a programming position of any kind if they didn't have a CS degree. I would consider those with math or engineering degrees
though.
There exists self-taught people who have all the skills of the elite school graduates. They will have learned faster, more independently and will reliably keep leaning during their careers. Look at all the top technology people currently... could be more than half don't have a degree.
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My experience with the "self-taught" crowd is that they aren't necessarily bad, but they often have gotten themselves into a lot of bad habits. It's all correctable, though. A lot of your newbie years are spent being re-trained as your company wants, meaning these bad habits can often be ironed out.
On December 17 2012 12:56 phar wrote:
Yes, but that's with at least 4+ years of studying for a CS degree. We're talking about the job potential for someone who has no CS degree and no actual relevant work experience.
The conversation shifted from that starting point, but yes.
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The whole crux of the argument against getting a degree seems to be that it's possible to get a degree in a subject without achieving mastery of that subject, and that it's possible to achieve mastery of a subject without getting a degree in that subject. Both points are obviously true, though the first shouldn't be, but they're not the end of the story. A (good) university-level academic program is a multiplier for most people: If you are really ambitious and passionate about a subject, you're very likely going to learn vastly more spending years in a structured and focused environment under the guidance of experts in your field than self-teaching. The existence of knowledge outside of "elite schools" isn't the point, it's that there are massive advantages to having experts around to help you digest that knowledge in a structured way, to answer questions, and to offer guidance.
And obviously, if I say that university is a multiplier, then if you bring no ambition and no passion, then you're going to learn fuck-all. A bad program will still give you a degree, but it won't be worth much because you'll end up working with peers who will quickly recognize your uselessness.
I would personally be perfectly willing to hire a self-taught programmer who had the skills required to do the job. Frankly, though, for every position my company makes available, we get hundreds of applicants, and we can't afford to interview a hundred candidates without a formal education to see if one of them is improbably talented. If their resume included links to a few impressive open source projects or some such, then I might take a look and put them in the interview pile, but given the resources it already takes to find good candidates even among those who've taken the time to get a formal education in the subject, finding the good ones among the rest is just not worth the expense.
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On December 17 2012 13:28 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:Show nested quote +
Anyway, I'm not saying that everyone who has a degree in CS is a good programmer. On the contrary, the honest truth is that most people that have CS degrees are poor programmers. But almost everyone I know that has "taught themself" programming are among the worst programmers I've met. I would hesitate to even offer someone an interview for a programming position of any kind if they didn't have a CS degree. I would consider those with math or engineering degrees
though.
There exists self-taught people who have all the skills of the elite school graduates. They will have learned faster, more independently and will reliably keep leaning during their careers. Look at all the top technology people currently... could be more than half don't have a degree.
Sure, there exist such people. Just like there exists a single french zerg player that seems to be at the top korean level of sc2 without the korean training regimen. Just like how most foreign "progamers" are trash compared to even mediocre korean programers.
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On December 17 2012 17:37 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
The whole crux of the argument against getting a degree seems to be that it's possible to get a degree in a subject without achieving mastery of that subject, and that it's possible to achieve mastery of a subject without getting a degree in that subject. Both points are obviously true, though the first shouldn't be, but they're not the end of the story. A (good) university-level academic program is a multiplier for most people: If you are really ambitious and passionate about a subject, you're very likely going to learn vastly more spending years in a structured and focused environment under the guidance of experts in your field than self-teaching. The existence of knowledge outside of "elite schools" isn't the point, it's that there are massive advantages to having experts around to help you digest that knowledge in a structured way, to answer questions, and to offer guidance.
And obviously, if I say that university is a multiplier, then if you bring no ambition and no passion, then you're going to learn fuck-all. A bad program will still give you a degree, but it won't be worth much because you'll end up working with peers who will quickly recognize your uselessness.
I would personally be perfectly willing to hire a self-taught programmer who had the skills required to do the job. Frankly, though, for every position my company makes available, we get hundreds of applicants, and we can't afford to interview a hundred candidates without a formal education to see if one of them is improbably talented. If their resume included links to a few impressive open source projects or some such, then I might take a look and put them in the interview pile, but given the resources it already takes to find good candidates even among those who've taken the time to get a formal education in the subject, finding the good ones among the rest is just not worth the expense.
Good post, I enjoyed it. I'm often told by those who are experienced that getting a CS degree at a good school is just the most optimal route to getting into a position you want. Of course it's possible to do so in a sub-optimal school, or even without one entirely. It's just not the best path or the most time-optimal way of going about it.
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EPT
