|
Is there anyone on HN, who have never learned programming or CS by taking formal classes, but learned everything by reading books on their own and building stuff that they wanted? What was the process like? Maybe they were from different major like engineering, physics, maths, biology, social sciences, humanities? |
CS actually has very limited utility in the software engineering and web development industry at large. It's very rare that you'll need to work out the time complexity of something or pick exactly the right data structure to use.
The value is in the fact that you graduated. That fact means you had the access to resources, the intelligence, the conscientiousness, and the interest in the topic, such that you could stick that out for 4 years without dropping out. That, in the interviewing company's mind, makes you "one of us", and who'll continue that grind on the job without giving up, hence the value.
The knowledge actually has little value. As a tech lead, I'm not interested in if you know what a double linked list is. I don't use those. I care if people are going to have to routinely rescue you from stuff like an npm package version problem or setting up xdebug or your local dev environment failing. That's what actually affects getting things done.
But if I see a degree in CS on someone's resume, I know what they've successfully been through, proving their nature is a fit.
On the other hand, if you show up saying you read CS books, I'm going to ignore you unless you've got some solid show-and-tell.
You be far better of joining the "building in public" indie hacker crowd, because you'll have practical skills to show for it.