
Do you need a degree to be a coder? - ColinWright
http://techcitynews.com/2013/08/09/do-you-need-a-degree-to-be-a-coder/
======
xiaoma
_> If you plan to develop device drivers, or work with artificial intelligence
or on real-time embedded systems with loads of algorithm analysis, a CS degree
is a must._

This is false. John Carmack, for example, has made significant contributions
in terms of real-time systems and algorithm analysis. Others without degrees
have done the same in other fields. Even the chief data scientist of the data
science-focused Kaggle came from a non-traditional background. An education is
a must. Schooling isn't.

~~~
roel_v
Not this shit again. Anecdote != data. Yes Bill Gates is a drop out. Does that
mean it's a good idea to drop out? No.

~~~
randomdata
A single anecdote is perfectly sufficient to disqualify the claim.

Whether or not dropping out is a good idea is the real tired argument here,
and does not even relate to the parent's comment. Google has studied this and
released a recent report about the matter (I do not have the link handy
anymore, but it was posted to HN at the time). They found that there is no
relationship between educational attainment and ability/performance. The case
is closed, at least until someone invalidates their study.

Given that, whether dropping out of/not attending a post-secondary institution
is a good or bad idea is really a personal matter, and is highly dependant on
the individual and that individual's particular situation. It might be
important for you, personally, to get a degree, but projecting that onto
anyone else is pointless as nobody else is in the same situation as you.

~~~
vinceguidry
> The case is closed, at least until someone invalidates their study.

Studies don't prove anything, it's so difficult to show causation with the
methodology of a study that very few of them even attempt it. The best you can
get is a strong correlation.

~~~
randomdata
But they found no correlation. That's the point. Until someone can at least
show that, there is not much we can discuss.

------
sarreph
Don't mean to ad-homeniem, but this was written by Jordan Poulton - the
Apprentice UK finalist that was ousted for failing to comply with the
competition's rules (read: lying).

[http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/10/the-apprentice-candidate-
jorda...](http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/10/the-apprentice-candidate-jordan-
poulton-branded-a-parasite-in-interviews-episode-3877571/)

~~~
polshaw
Ahaha that's brilliant. I always thought he stunk of a subset of the HN crowd
(the make a lot of noise 'ideas man' caricature).

It's not completely ad-hom as he has no ability in coding-- either through
degree or self learning (he teamed up with a coding founder for his idea, was
clearly not technical).. which is somewhat relevant for this advert. Was this
his idea on the Apprentice (12 week coding course) or did that fail? All the
references I can find just mention the mess around it, not the actual business
idea.

~~~
jiggy2011
It was something to do with augmented reality IIRC. He was trying to get
investment for a company in which he was neither a director or shareholder.

------
noir_lord
Nomenclature matters, I hate the term "coder" what was wrong with programmer
or software engineer?.

What you call yourself has an impact on how people assess your skills (I know
it shouldn't matter but it does).

If someone is called a software engineer that brings to mind a conscientious
programmer who writes clear maintainable code that meets the spec however when
someone is called a coder I visualise someone who vomits PHP into an editor
intermingled with HTML and CSS in a form of code injection bingo.

~~~
etanol
Calling yourself a software engineer implies an software engineering degree.
Otherwise you would be a liar.

I bet not many people have the guts to call themselves mechanical engineers
just because they know how to fix the break pump of a car, for example.

~~~
jiggy2011
Not necessarily true, even in more formal engineering disciplines it is often
possible to become an engineer (as recognised by professional bodies) without
a degree.

In software engineering this is even more blurry, for example my school
offered both computer science as software engineering degrees. However in
practise the only difference was that the software engineering track had a
mandatory module on UML.

~~~
flexd
We have pretty much the same thing here at school, with a few differences. I
got to computer engineering, which has math, physics, some chemistry (for
unknown reasons) and a few other things. While the computer
science/informatics course has just discrete math and no calculus, no physics
and no chemistry. They have more IT classes.

At least here in Norway 'Engineer' is not a protected title (but Civil
Engineer is), so anyone could just call themselves an engineer.

But unless you have tons of experience and can prove you know the required
things then I doubt you will be getting a job as a Construction Engineer or
something like that without a degree.

In IT I doubt anyone cares as long as you prove yourself capable.

~~~
jiggy2011
This depends a great deal on jurisdiction, in the UK there are many jobs with
titles of "X engineer" which would more accurately be described as "X
technician" or "X operator".

In places which more rigorously enforce titles it is usually down to a
professional body to set requirements, though even then these tend to not
mandate a degree (though that makes the path smoother). For example the IEEE
requires either an IEEE accredited degree or 6 years of proven work experience
in a relevant field to achieve member status.

In the UK we have a institution for IT professionals (The British Computer
Society) though as far as I can tell nobody really cares much about it.

~~~
noir_lord
Lots of the people I've worked with that I've respected have been members of
the IEEE they seem to have quite a few programmers and all the ones I've met
have been excellent.

Even met one of these once
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_Software_Development_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_Software_Development_Professional)
he was a scarily good software engineer.

------
mmphosis
As a coder (programmer, software developer) without a degree, my question is:

 _If you have that degree, do you know how to code?_

I've worked with a lot of people with degrees that were not coders. They might
have written code in university to get their degree, but I am not sure that
they could really code, or maybe they weren't interested. They were managers,
architects, engineers, analysts, quality assurance, sales-people, directors,
presidents and various other titles and roles but they were definitely not
coders.

Do not let that detract from getting a computer science degree. I learned from
people with a degree: non-coding stuff, and methodologies that I had been
clueless about that definitely improved my coding. You need much more than
being self-taught, everything helps: formal education and training, working
with other coders, work experience, non-work experience, and mostly you need
to make mistakes along the way.

The first and only thing you need to be a coder, is to code. Keep on coding.

------
junto
Two of the best programmers I know have not got degrees. However, I also know
a few that have got degrees and are really smart.

Having a good degree does apparently demonstrate that you are able to apply
yourself, without someone standing over you nagging you to finish your
assignments (ala Mama and Papa whilst at school).

That is an attractive quality for an employer. I have a crap degree, hated my
course but have been a successful freelancer for over 10 years, mostly working
remotely. I deliver and my clients trust me. I may be an exception, but in my
opinion degrees don't really mean diddly-squat.

I'll take work experience over a degree any day of the week.

------
Shish2k
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

Not sure anything else really needs to be said...

------
dbond
Can we just agree that university isn't the only method of learning?

You either have the knowledge/skills or you don't.

------
qammm
I am sure there a lot of very smart people with great programming skills and
without a degree. However at least in Germany I see another problem: Almost
every job ad for a programming positition starts with "Computer science or
related degree required". Without a degree you are just filtered out by the
Human Resources Department that doesn't know anything about programming at
all. They are just checking formalities and doing buzzword matching. You won't
even get to an interview or get an opportunity to prove your skills. :-(

~~~
louthy
It's a win-win situation. They get to see fewer candidates, and you don't end
up working for a rubbish company.

~~~
qammm
I like your way of seeing things! :-)

------
cowls
I would argue that a CS degree will make finding that first developer role a
lot easier. You _should_ also be more prepared for it. After 5+ years of
experience it becomes a lot less relevant, and yes there are lots of people
that have got a developer job without degrees but I think it takes a lot of
dedication and sometimes a bit of luck.

Although as this article claims, £50000 is indeed hard to justify.

~~~
venomsnake
I have seen CS graduates that are unable to use debugger. I think that CS is
great if you like it. But in the real world where cows are not spherical and
definitely not in vacuum a CS graduate needs some roughing up from
uncooperative chips, frameworks, hisenbugs, undocumented features,
undocumented bugs, management hell before throwing them in the trenches.

The best developers I know usually come from electrical/communications
engineering backgrounds - they are used to stuff not working for no reason and
never assume anything.

------
austinz
I don't think a degree is necessary; certainly not necessary in the same sense
that you would want your brain surgeon to have graduated from medical school.

I think there are two separate problems here, though - one in which a
particular individual is being assessed for his or her aptitude, and one where
dozens or hundreds of applicants for a particular position must be evaluated
on the basis of limited information, often from a pool of even more
candidates.

A degree by itself is not a terribly reliable proxy for capability or
potential, but better proxies are harder to scale and apply to many more
people. Companies like degrees because they're an easy, lazy way to (at least
in the minds of HR people) establish a competency baseline, and if it's true
that most companies would rather have false negatives than false positives,
it's easy to see why a degree would be "required" in a lot of cases. Hopefully
that will change in the future.

------
gpsarakis
Although not entirely necessary or not guaranteeing the skills and expertise,
a somewhat scientific (or engineering if you prefer) background is definitely
more probable to give solid foundations for a programmer. I am guessing
companies would prefer someone with a scientific background too.

Perhaps a degree in Computer Science specifically is not a prerequisite,
that's certainly debatable. In particular, once you have some foundations on
mid/advanced mathematics and logic I guess you can catch up with software
systems and languages pretty quickly, depending of course on your ability to
learn and talent, thus becoming self-taught on software engineering.

~~~
randomdata
Growing up on the farm and being able to work directly along side my father
and grandfather, I remember being encouraged to solve engineering-like
problems, of which you'll find many on the farm, along with them at a fairly
young age. I sometimes wonder if higher education has become, in many ways, an
attempt to substitute for that kind of mentorship that is so often lost in our
now predominately urban society?

~~~
gpsarakis
Mentorship is not lost. In fact it is expanding. How many conferences,
training workshops can one attend or how many blog articles & tutorials are we
reading on a daily basis? Nevertheless, people tend to reject theoretical
knowledge or value it more over practical. This can prove to be disastrous as
well :).

Although some people have a fair grasp of machinery, imagine someone self-
taught building their own reaping machine for your farm, would you try it or
would you trust better someone with a more engineering background?

~~~
randomdata
You are right. I was thinking at a young age though. How many people are
working with professionals in a given field while still in elementary school?
In fact, in many places there are laws against working with those people at
such an age, often with farming being the only exception. Adults do have more
options, including college, which is possibly the de-facto standard to make up
for what I suggest is lost as a child.

 _> imagine someone self-taught building their own reaping machine for your
farm, would you try it or would you trust better someone with a more
engineering background?_

If you look at the history of the farm equipment manufacturers, they all
pretty much started on farms to solve the problems of the farms, built by the
farmers. Today, in the well established market, you do not really know who is
building the products. They might be engineers, they might not be. Nobody asks
- nobody cares.

Aside from nobody using reaping machines anymore, if someone self-taught
brought a new reaping machine onto the market, I'd certainly evaluate it. It
is not automatically any worse than anything else available. Some of the
agriculture products built by big-name manufactures (and presumably fully
trained engineers) are laughably bad to begin with, so the bar isn't
necessarily high anyway.

Today, it doesn't make economic sense for a farmer to build a machine from
scratch, but farm-built modifications to production equipment is very common.
While some farmers are professional engineers, farmers come from all walks of
life. It doesn't really seem strange at all to be building that kind of thing
without formal training. It is just part of the job.

------
adregan
Those best suited to solve the problems of a particular discipline are those
who are invested in it. Developing software ought to be a literacy that many
are able to attain outside of having a CS degree. That way, one can develop
their interests outside of software.

Obviously, if technology is your major passion, CS is awesome. However, maybe
you want to become a baker, a musician, a painter, etc. who also happens to
like developing software.

------
frustration
You either need a degree or enough financial comfortability to take the time
to write and sell your own software or service. Accumulation of advantage, and
all that. I have neither and I can't get a job.

Before you say you didn't need a degree, consider if people helped you, if
people would only help with unreasonable strings attached, or if you have many
friends.

------
ktzar
Not at all. TLDR; No. (I do have a degree and a M.S., and have found very
competent coders, at least as competent as me, without one)

------
davidw
No. Why is anyone still asking this question in 2013?

------
lewisflude
I don't have a degree. I feel like theres so much I could've learned at the
right University, but I'm doing alright without.

~~~
dbond
A lot of the time (for me) things that first seem like missing knowledge are
just missing terminology.

~~~
wusatiuk
yep, that is true. what you learn for sure at a university is using the right
(intelectual) terms at the right time.

------
yxhuvud
No. But you need to know how to code, and you have to be able to demonstrate
that to get a job.

------
jokoon
coding no, electronics, math and physics, yeah, but most of it is taught in
middle and high school.

Although I strongly advise any programmer to learn a little about electronics.

~~~
venomsnake
I think that designing, soldering and programming simple PCB with a PIC on it
that can echo stuff received over RS232 should be obligatory right of passage
project for programmers.

------
jheriko
absolutely not. i've worked alongside plenty of oxbridge grads even who
weren't worth a penny... i dropped out - best decision ever. :)

------
era86
No. Plain and simple.

