[drakaal]

This is like saying speaking fluent English doesn't make you a genius, and being a Genius doesn't mean you will speak fluent English.

Having a CS degree won't make you a genius, or guarantee you write beautiful code.

There are 3 factors at play. Brains, Fluency, and Theory.

If you have good theory you won't spend 100 years trying to figure out things people already have figured out.

If you have good Fluency you will write like people in that language write. "Your code is very Pythonic".

If you have brains you may solve a problem no one thought was possible.

I don't have a CS degree, but I'm a "grey beard" as a result I have good theory. I don't speak Python as a first language, or the language I think in, so I don't have good fluency. As a certified Genius I have a big brain and often solve things people didn't think were solvable. So I make up for a lack of fluency.

[EpicEng]

Where does one apply for their genius certification? Perhaps I can slap that on my resume.

Seriously though, I like the assessment. I've worked with people from all three camps. Everyone has their pros and cons. I work in the medical space and end up spending a lot of time with more academic types.

In my experience they haven't been the best "architects", but they have been great at solving tough problems and writing code that does what it is supposed to do. I work with them to develop it, and then I take our code and integrate it in a way that allows us to maintain it more easily over the years.

[drakaal]

Mensa is one place. But there are others. Cerebrals Society, Intertel, Prometheus Society, The Triple Nines.

My role at Microsoft was as Subject Matter Expert. SME's don't write "much code" but we tend to prove problems are addressable in code and build proof of concept code.

My current role as CTO I work in python which is not a language I have been doing for very long. I struggle with Lambda's and List Comprehension, often opting to use slower constructs that a less experienced developer would use. But the logic is solid.

I also often am completely with out error handling, and just say. "Well duh, if you try and stuff HTML in my text field it breaks." or "Why did you use curly quotes I'm not handling your Unicode".

Part of that is "not knowing" because I don't do it 40 hours a week, and part of it is that it is cheaper to have other fix my code than it is to tie me up adding all the error handling and input validation.