[prostoalex]

> Any CS knowledge initially lacking should be acquired through experience and self-teaching by then

Sure, but how many people involved in a day-to-day job of (let's say) supporting a Rails application in their spare time read up on (let's say) data structures, algorithm design, operating systems, game design, database management systems or functional programming?

In an ideal world everyone does this, in reality I found that professional experience is more conducive to growing as a specialist vs growing as a generalist - conversations with coworkers, dealing with bug reports, browsing StackOverflow and attending conferences are all centered around getting deeper, not broader.

[buchanaf]

I would say thats a fair criticism of any programmer though. Unless you are using data structures and algorithm design (etc.) on a relatively frequent basis at work, you aren't going to remember much of your CS degree 3-4 years down the road.

[andrewhayter]

I was going to say the same thing.