> I can contribute some.
So please do, then?
> How else would I know that at the root ...
Just read a few books on algorithms and data structures? Is that a problem? Or do you say CS degree course gives you access to books you otherwise cannot get?
I got my first, quite a decent one[1], for my 12th birthday. I slept with it. Like, seriously, kept it next to my pillow. At first, I didn't understand anything. A year later, the book was in a rather tattered shape, but my understanding was quite decent, except for some of the "AI" algorithms (the book was from '95, so what it called AI was rather different from today). About half a year into reading it I finally saved enough money to buy the least expensive version of Visual C++, and I could finally start coding the exercises. Before that, I just imagined what they would look like, how they would work; I borrowed Stroustrup's "The C++ Language", read it and wrote C++ code in my biology notebooks. I sorted playing cards, laying on the carpet in my room, and was overjoyed when they indeed became sorted. It was incredibly exciting. You know what uni was when I entered it years later? Anything but.
> Additionally it opens the world of acidemia to you by teaching you the conventions and tools you need to read and make sense of comp sci papers
By the time I actually needed them, the papers were mostly accessible to anyone, academia or not - but that was many years later.
Before that, though, I learned most of the "tools" from - again - books. There were great books on math in my high school library and my maths teacher was happy to help with things I struggled with, even though they were unrelated to the actual course she taught. My first animated, rotating cube implementation was thanks to her. She told me that what matters is the curiosity to find problems and persistence in attacking them. She never once told me that about having a degree.
> You don't know what you don't know
What? You try to implement something. It doesn't work. Here, that's what you don't know. Now go learn it.
It's really that simple. If you're a person who "tries to implement something" on your own once in a blue moon, then sure, school is good for you. It forces you to try things and helps you accomplish them. If you're not, though, it's just going to slow you down and suck all the pleasure out of learning (because it will force you to try things you don't want or need at that point - instead of an exciting adventure, learning becomes more like a job due to this. It's dreadful. Horrible. And most of all: counterproductive.)
> but you can go it alone of you want.
Well, some of us can, others don't. It's important to know two things: a) which kind of person you are; and b) you don't have to be ashamed of being either. Your post sounded a bit condescending to me, hence the lengthy response - I just wanted to offer a perspective of someone from the other group.
[1] first ed. of https://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/Algorytmy-struktury-danych-i-techn...