[billpatrianakos]

The thing about coding is that you have to be self taught. Languages, techniques, and technology in general moves so fast that by the time you get a degree everything you've learned as far as coding goes is already being replaced.

I learned simple HTML when I was 11 and have been self teaching myself ever since. I'm not in my second year of a degree in CS and what I've found is that the language and the code itself is not important. What's important are the concepts. Types, objects, methods, the theories behind programming, and all of those less tangible things are what's important because that is the basic foundation of programming.

Programming is different than other skills. It's as much of an art as it is a science. The science is relatively unchanging but the art does. Your code is always evolving and there's always the potential for you to make yourself obsolete if you don't continue to teach yourself. I focus on the web and in working in web design in particular I'm seeing a trend that speaks to the idea that you must always be teaching yourself. There are oodles and oodles of web design/development firms out there that have been around since the late 90's that you can tell have been around since the late 90's. Their work looks dated in terms of design and their techniques look like they're right out of 1997! The guys working there used to be young and up on the latest trends but it's obvious they've stopped learning and young guys are passing them up easily. Even people with less than half their experience are writing better code and have prettier output.

I think you can tell who got into programming just to get a job and who got into it out of passion by looking at their work. If it continually improves they've got passion, if it plateaus at a certain point then they're just employed and nothing more.

In the end being self taught is a requirement and never an option in this field. Once you have the foundational knowledge of programming then everything else is just a matter of keeping up with new tech and learning some new syntax every so often.

[sounds]

Counterexample?

I'm self-taught. I'm trying to filter for confirmation bias here.

I dated a girl (it was awesome but it didn't last) who was a C.S. grad student but wasn't the type to "autodidact" at anything. She was also a stunning musician, an entrepreneur, and an investor.

Ok, basically I'm trying to paint the picture of someone who is clearly my superior in many areas, and understands C.S., but isn't self taught.

I couldn't pretend to know all the reasons, but she wasn't in it just for the job or the money. She seemed a genuine hacker but just not in the same sense as me.

[billpatrianakos]

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that only self-taught programmers are good. In fact I think it's extremely important to get that initial education. I was just commenting on the fact that programming is a field where you're forced to continually learn new things long after your training ends. Your example is probably missing a lot of things. While I'm sure she was a great hacker I'm willing to bet that she continued her education on her own like all of us do. If you're programming then chances are that you're learning things you weren't taught in school all the time. Given that the industry changes noticeably between the time you enter a program of study and graduate it's inevitable.

I also made another point about how some programmers never try to branch out beyond what they're comfortable with coming out of the gate (i.e. they stop learning) which could have made it seem like I was saying something else.