Does Learning To Code Outweigh a Degree In Computer Science?

jjp9999 writes A college degree may not the best route when it comes to jobs in coding. Jobs for computer science majors flow aplenty, yet employers (and job-seekers) often learn quickly that the college grads don't have the skills. "This is because the courses taught in virtually all computer science curriculums focus on theory, and they only dabble in teaching practical programming skills," says Cody Scholberg on Epoch Times. This ties into a unique factoid in the world of programmers. Nearly half of the software developers in the United States do not have a college degree. Many never even graduated from high school. Instead, many aspiring programmers are turning to open source learning materials, or to the new programming bootcamps popping up around the United States. While theory does have its place, the situation raises the question of whether colleges are teaching the right skills people need to join the workforce, and what its place is amid the rise of open source learning.

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Re:In equally surprising news

[bill_mcgonigle]

Dude, it's Slashdot, you have to say, "does learning to replace a transmission outweigh a degree in mechanical engineering?"

It's OK. We play this game:

The servers are really slow.
Your app is pegging the CPU. It didn't yesterday. What did you deploy?
Nothing.
What did you deploy?
Well, just an update to module foo.
What does the update do?
It adds a feature to do X.
What's the big-O of your algorithm to do X?

This is where the deer-in-the-headlights look begins. And the sysadmin analyzes the "developer"s algorithm and shows him why it's n^3 and how to make it nlog(n).

Being able to swap out a transmission is good, and if you're designing a transmission you better damn well know how somebody is going to swap it out, but just because you can swap out a transmission doesn't mean you're ready to design a new one.

Car people have it easier, though, because car factories are really expensive. But that also limits the possbilities of having 999 crap new transmission designs for one brilliant one that the factory owners' employees never thought of. Mixed blessings.