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Are You a Blue-Collar Or White-Collar Developer?
jammag writes "Some developers have gone to four-year universities, where they've also studied subjects like history and sociology, while other coders go to vocational schools and focus purely on writing great software. So why, asks a longtime developer, is there a stigma attached to not having a four-year degree, when 'blue collar' coders might be better trained? Why does the software industry keep emphasizing this difference — and generally giving better pay to four-year grads? Isn't being a developer about real skill level, not the piece of paper on the wall?"
They do not have as expansive of knowledge in data structures and sorting algorithms and the like. There are many jobs where optimizing is important and knowing which algorithm has the best run time in O() notation can be important.
That's something you learn by reading a book. No need for a "degree".
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
A degree certifies that you've read and to some degree understood, the book.
Which could possibly be a very old book that has nothing to do with the things of today. When you get out of college, you are not supposed to stop reading, but a college degree doesn't certify that. Heck, some old timers might still not understand object-oriented programming.
This is a field where you are supposed to be reading anyway
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Historically, it has not been all that long that formal credentials have been required for physicians, nurses, lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, scientists, architects, etc.
I'll bet that when degrees were first required, for any of those professions, the self trained in those professions were screaming and crying about how they don't need a piece of paper to prove anything, and about how those with formal credentials often had inferior skills.
If software developers don't need formal credentials, then why does anybody else? Why not do away with requirements for all formal training of any kind? Instead, when you go to a new doctor, you can give him, or her, a technical interview. Wouldn't that make more sense?
Calculus has the same relationship with programming as bench-pressing does with furnature moving. If you are good at one, then it will help with the other, and if you suck at one then there is a good chance you suck at the other.
Ok... PROVE it.
I keep hearing people say this over and over. It doesn't match my experience, and I've yet to see any proof of that assertion. If there actually is a link, it shouldn't be hard to find a study to demonstrate it, right?
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