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Comment by alexhaefner | Hacker News Reader

This is really a fantastic idea. Although there was an article on HN recently about not dropping out, I have to say I feel that computer science is a field that requires no formal education to be successful (economically, and intellectually) in.

Also I find something detrimental about college to the individual, and I'm thinking in a individualistic sense.

Anyways, I'd love to see sites like this pop up, and micro grant programs around them to help encourage individuals to build something great.

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I think you mean computer programming here, which I completely agree with. Computer science is an entirely different beast.

It's one thing to learn how to lay bricks, but another to learn how to architect a skyscraper.

I'd clarify it as, programming as an engineering field, but not programming as a science. So yeah, essentially the same thing.

Interestingly enough, at North Carolina State University, Computer Science is part of the College of Engineering, and the coursework largely follows the same path as their other engineering programs (complete with the standard E 101 course at the beginning and a senior design project at the end), albeit more theoretically focused than most.

Right. The University of Michigan does the same thing. But there was discussion on the first day about how computers aren't grouped into science or engineering, because the broadness of compsci provides opportunity in both fields.

Vision might be an example of what I'm trying to explain, moving from researching how to get a computer to see, to something that is practically being used for face recognition and license plate recognition. At the same time there is still more research on vision to be done, especially when paired with robotics.

Architects can also focus on design, which reduces the need for a rigorous engineering training. An architect doesn't have to be a construction engineer.

For example, Tadao Ando started as a truck driver and became one of the world's most celebrated architects with no formal training: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando

The software world is missing a job title that would approximate the role of a design-oriented architect. There are plenty of software architects, but this is usually a misleading title because they design infrastructure rather than public-facing spaces. The software architect is more like a "software municipal engineer".

It's called Information Architect.

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