What about encouraging people to learn CS on their own, who have no way, to go to the university?
(lack of formal education, money, time ...)
And for those people usually what matters are not academic high valued software, but to make a living. And many people dream about making a living with IT, so they want to read such success stories, so thats why you see such success stories much more ..
My whole point was that the truth of what it is to code for a living is hidden by those kind of sensationnal articles. Those who want to get into the industry are not encouraged to work on what matters (ie engineering skills instead of fancy frameworks) and end up disappointed with their opportunities or their skill set. CS universities tend to push students toward developping an engineering skill set.
I would really like to see people without a degree that want to improve to be encouraged to do the same instead of being encouraged to read 3 wordpress tutos and start selling their skills by manipulating small business owners into spending money they don't have.
I trained developers with and without a CS degree and I always nudge them into improving engineering skills.
Both have their up- and downsides, and treating them like equals is ignoring that which makes them each of them unique.
There will always be a market for self-taughts, if you don't understand this, you don't understand what makes a self-taught special.