🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <315ED94F.73E@airmail.net>, Brian Ebarb <ebarb@airmail.net> wrote:
> Whether it's true or not in the artificial universe of academia is 
> beyond my experience since I'm self-taught. Nonetheless, 15 years of 
> professional programming has shown me that a) many bugs in PC-based 
> development (Windows, network, database...) are caused by too much code, 
> usually written by someone who isn't really sure what they're doing, and 
> b) most universities do a deplorable job of preparing their charges with 
> the skills necessary to hit the ground running and be even moderately 
> productive in a commercial programming environment.

Interestingly, I have found just the opposite. Of the programmers I've worked
with (which amounts to many over about 7 years of varied employment), the 
worst code was usually written by the self-taught. Now, I should also add
that some of the neatest and most creative code was written by the self-taught
(often suitably given the name 'hackers'). 

Creative and interesting, however, is not always that useable in a
productivity-oriented situation (e.g. industry) where unreadable, sloppy,
obfuscated code is hardly useful. Getting a university education in
computer science guarantees a certain standard of knowledge, an
opportunity to learn disciplined code writing (if I see another person who
doesn't indent their code I'm gonna...), and in most cases, a chance to
get some good industry experience (co-op). 

Now, I am not going to generalize that all self-taught programmers are
poor, but I do feel that an education can greatly benefit one's
programming talents avoiding the slow and tedious trial-and-error process
that the self-taught go through. 

Having said that, I do sympathize with your position Brian, being
self-taught myself :)

Steve

-- 
Steve Franklin                        franklsm@tuns.ca
Halifax Nova Scotia                   http://www.tuns.ca/~franklsm/
Technical University of Nova Scotia   Masters of Applied Science (EE)