On Wed, 02 May 2007 06:08:38 -0700, Kev wrote:

The good software places to work at, don't give a bleep what degrees you
have... it's the real world experience and output that is critical
instead.

This is only partially true.

When we look at a potential employee, we're looking for projects where the
person worked both with and without supervision, and got along well either
way. We're looking for times they had to learn new stuff on their own
and innovate. We're looking for hard working types who care about their
output quality. We're also looking for people who can spell grin,
which is rare these days.

Laugh That last is absolutely true. But it's not just the skill of
spelling; it's that this is a good metric for "output quality". If one
cannot proof his/her own resume and cover letter - documents of some
personal import - then what are we to expect with regard to software?

The issue with the degree is one of consistency and depth of knowledge.
We just interviewed, for example, someone that's well educated in general
but self-taught in computer science. If we'd not pushed the interview a
bit, he'd not have lasted five minutes.

His problem is that his understanding is spotty. When asked about inner
vs. outer joins, for example, he provided a nonsense answer (ie. one is
for 1:1; the other for 1:many). We inquired further, and it turns out
that he did understand these joins. He'd merely mixed a couple of
concepts up (in an incorrect but easily fixed fashion) which led to misuse
of the labels "1:1" and "1:many".

Learning on ones own can cause this. A class, with its defined
curriculum, should (no guarantee! {8^) avoid this by building knowledge in
a proper progression.

Another risk to the self-taught is failing to learn the "why" of
something. For simple work, this may not matter. But let's consider
locking as an example, sticking with the data store theme. Locking solves
a particular problem well for given circumstances. But w/o really
understanding why locking is right for those circumstances, one might miss
that the circumstances with which he or she is faced is better served by
(for example) some form of optimistic concurrency.

On the other hand, a degree is no guarantee that a person doesn't suffer
from these issues. That is for what interviews are. But school is an
opportunity to acquire a depth of knowledge that's a little tough on ones
own.

Still, it is the responsibility of the student to exploit the opportunity.

I have to admit, though: I don't know how this applies to a controller.
But I've little-to-no knowledge of that job.

- Andrew