> Yet, if I sat down and decided to build my own computer language or operating system from scratch, I bet I’d learn a lot of interesting things along the way.
Or, in some fields, you would learn nothing at all, because you would hit
a brick wall of your lack of understanding basic concepts that are taught in
some of the classes you've dismissed in the article.
Though most of the fields in IT are reachable by people without external
training.
> because you would hit a brick wall of your lack of understanding basic concepts that are taught in some of the classes you've dismissed in the article
Ehhhh, it is possible to learn just about anything on your own if you are interested enough. I have a coworker who didn't go to college but who has been working through those little yellow Springer-Verlag math books for fun for 30 years, and is thus our first go to anytime some weird theory questions comes up.
> Ehhhh, it is possible to learn just about anything on your own if you are
interested enough.
Not really. There are several fields that have two types of learning material
available: most basic and trivial stuff only good for showing off at parties
and academic books and papers, too difficult to learn from without guidance.
Unless "interested enough" means "you're ready to put in enormous effort".
> I have a coworker who didn't go to college but who has been working through those little yellow Springer-Verlag math books for fun for 30 years
Of course there are exceptions. Who do you think developed all these fields
if not untrained researchers?
> Not really. There are several fields that have two types of learning material available: most basic and trivial stuff only good for showing off at parties and academic books and papers, too difficult to learn from without guidance.
Do you have an example? I can't think of anything in my field, computer science, that can't be learned by self-experimentation and reading.
A good example of more hands-on science learning would be Cody from Cody's Lab who has claimed to have done similar experiments dating back to his early teens in highschool before he started his college education.
Cryptography is one prominent example. Modern compilers would be another
(though an amateur can go here a little farther than in others, because of
parser generators and such). Operating systems more sophisticated than
a toy-grade proof of concept is yet another. And writing (again,
non-toy-grade) databases. And formal verification of programs, this is hard to
learn on one's own, too.
Or, in some fields, you would learn nothing at all, because you would hit a brick wall of your lack of understanding basic concepts that are taught in some of the classes you've dismissed in the article.
Though most of the fields in IT are reachable by people without external training.