[chriszf]

Fair enough, but it's interesting to note that a person with little-to-no CS background can be made to resemble, in all respects, a junior-to-mid level engineer in such a short time. It suggests that the industry notion that a CS degree is needed to be a good engineer needs to be challenged. Why it exists at all baffles me, when some of the best software engineers around are mostly home-grown: John Carmack, Shawn Fanning, Ken Silverman, Bram Cohen, etc.

[babarock]

Because the industry is so much more than throwing preformated auto-generated web forms at a database. There are things far more serious than your average "Facebook meets Fitocracy for lumberjacks" ideas...

If Carmack and others managed to do great without a formal degree good for them. But they're outstanding people and are more the exception than the rule. If you're as talented as these guys, fine let your skills speak for themselves. But assuming every person following this 3 month "program" will now call themselves a programmer is something completely different.

[plinkplonk]

"the industry notion that a CS degree is needed to be a good engineer needs to be challenged."

true enough. but whether CS knowledge is required is a more interesting question. John Carmack (picking a name from your 'homegrown' list) is extremely knowledgable about algorithms, computer architecture, graphics etc.

of course, it also depends on the definition of 'good engineer'. If you define it as "someone who can build a simple CRUD app in Ruby on Rails", then probably very little CS knowledge is required.

[emmapersky]

I think mid level engineer needs to be contextualized. Mid level at top CS companies is a huge achievement and not something that '[anyone] can be made to resemble ... in a short space of time"