

Top-tier this (2011) - ayanb
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3045-top-tier-this

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Ovid
_I didn't want those grapes anyway_.

There are many schools out there who produce CS students who haven't the
foggiest notion of how to code in anything other than Java or maybe Python.
They don't understand algorithmic analysis. They wouldn't recognize O(n^2)
behavior in quicksort if it bit them in the quadratics. And what the heck is
that radix sort thingy? And hey, if I need a backprop network, I can just
Google for it, right?

That's _perfectly okay_ when they're hacking together a RoR app and earning
plenty of money for their clients, but there's also a fair chunk of work out
there that they can't do. Most programmers probably couldn't cut at, say,
SpaceX, though I daresay many of us would love to work there. What's worse,
they tell themselves "I can just Google that", but if you've never even been
exposed to an idea, it's awfully tough to Google for.

I remember when a university explained to me that they no longer teach C
because it's "obsolete and OO is the future". I can't say if the list of
schools that DHH provided are good or not, but if you have a company that
needs CS graduates that are more than a McProgrammers, then yes, the school
can make a huge difference.

~~~
marknutter
Assuming that anybody coming from non-elite universities are "McProgrammers"
is insulting. You learn how to _learn_ at a good university. Rarely do you
ever hit the ground running with every skill perfectly matched to the job
you're hired for at any given company. That's why people, y'know, learn on the
job. I very much doubt any programmer working on SpaceX had ever launched a
craft into space before getting hired there. Stop being elitist.

~~~
Ovid
> Assuming that anybody coming from non-elite universities are "McProgrammers"
> is insulting.

Fortunately, I didn't say that.

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hackernewbie
DHH is so mouthy it actually is really beginning to give the impression of
massive insincerity.

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WayneDB
Uh-oh. Is 37 signals being sexist because they said "this" like that? I
envisioned a jock-grab when I read it.

