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Comment by SecretDreams | Hacker News Reader

Plenty of formally educated engineers will try to solve new and unfamiliar problems.

What you're describing isn't self-taught vs. formally educated. It is curious vs complacent w/ a heavy sprinkle of hard work, creativity, and intelligence.

Both groups can have those traits. Self-taught can ONLY work well if you have those traits, so maybe you more obviously see it in that group since it's a requirement to succeed when self taught, whereas a classically trained engineer without those traits will probably still "make it". An engineer with those traits and the formal education will do better than either category most of the time.

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Maybe the perception is because of the larger percentage in each group.

Self Taught -> Already is curious, be default, so 99%-100% are curious. Just by the nature of going out of the way to learn something.

Educated -> Also has a curious % in the group, but also has the large group of complacent "i heard software makes money so i'm hear to learn it, but i don't know what i'm doing". So when you do find complacent, they mostly came from the educated path.

That's my experience as well. People came to CS because they love computers and want to learn how they work were so different than "I just want a job which makes money" people in every way even in the university years.

Curious people got high on the caffeine and code, and the other group just got high.

All I know is that if my coding ability had been measured through mandatory assignments that I would be force-fed without any immediate need, I would have been disgusted.

"Locking-in" on some esoteric topics just because one wants to is probably the best way to improve in my opinion.

On the other hand I have been through a pretty generalist undergrad education in engineering and it helped in acquiring general math, physics, chemistry knowledge.

I also went through a very generalist CS course, that we call Computer Engineering, which covered from hardware to software plus math, physics, chemistry.

I was already a nerd when I was attending the university. My chance was my instructors and professors let me roam free and convert every assignment to a rabbit hole. Poisoned by demoscene earlier, I was already an elegance/performance freak before even I got graduated, and this made me dive into unknown territory head-on instead of being afraid of it.

I have written a compression algorithm from scratch for graduation, then written a multi-agent trading system for M.Sc. project. For Ph.D. I have written a BEM based material simulation which was able to saturate the system very effectively, reaching practical IPC limits of the processors it ran on.

This goes both ways. I think the vast majority of my colleagues who got into CS later post-college did it because they needed a job, and that's where jobs were.

> Self Taught -> Already is curious, be default, so 99%-100% are curious.

There is some of this but IME that % is half your estimate, if not lower.

It could be different in today's market because CS IS NOT where a lot of jobs are, and my observations are based on when it was very very hot, so there's that.

But, no matter what you or I say anecdata is not data, but in my 30+ years of doing this, I find these broad generalizations mostly wrong.

not all self taught are curious, at least recent batches.

Ya, agreed. I even tried to allude to as much.

Well, I agree with both of you a bit. I'm mostly self-taught with a backing of a technical diploma and half a CS degree. The part I'd pull from the parent here is that I could not reconcile my level of curiosity and so on with the corporate world at all. I tried, it did not work, I just burnt out and resented programming for a while because what they actually valued was the thing other people were really good at, but what they thought they wanted were the qualities that make a scrappy startup great; namely showing up on time for the standup, wearing the right clothes, being tremendously dull with predictable ideas, endless meetings and low level risk mitigation, little agency over work.

I've since realized that it might have been the easiest job ever if I didn't have any curiosity, and didn't overcomplicate things or care about quality, because nobody did. I don't think that's the difference between a CS grad and a self-taught person, but it might be what drives a self-taught person to pursue it at all, whereas I've met many in CS who are just there because they were capable at math or made the call to do that degree instead of something else, and some of them really panic when faced with ambiguity. For me, if there's no ambiguity or no aspect of creativity, I just get bored and zone out (yes adhd). Just different alignments in some cases.

"It is curious vs complacent w/ a heavy sprinkle of hard work, creativity, and intelligence."

Formal training brings with it information that others have shown to be vital knowledge that must be known. No doubt many self taught people master a profession better than those who've gone through formal training with a complacent attitude but it's the latter's training that guarantees students master certain points that the self-taught might put less emphasis on.

I'd be much happier crossing a bridge built by a structural engineer who has had certain rules (safety margins, etc.) drummed into him ad nauseam.

Comparisons between software and structural engineering make no sense, ever.

Structures are one-and-done projects with engineers having access to concrete data on material strength, load calculations, etc.

Software projects are never ending, always chasing ever changing requirements. There are no comforting rules of math and physics to fall back on. There are no "load and safety" calculations that another software engineer can perform on a program to verify its integrity.

Completely agree on software engineering. Not sure if it shouldve been callled engineering ever, but calling it applied philosophy sounds even more pretentious, and while we try to pretend to be rigorous and structured, software engineering really shares a lot more with writing than with building bridges.

That said, I think we sometimes tend to overestimate how structured projects like bridges are, and that almost everything we have discovered about software projects applies there too, just to a less extend - delays, changing requirements, unrealistic planning, last moment extra requests etc. etc.

"Completely agree on software engineering. …engineering really shares a lot more with writing than with building bridges."

OK, so what happens when the weak link in the chain in building a bridge or other critical structure like a plane is the software that helped design it?

So-called software engineers want their cake and eat it too. They aren't prepared for the rigors and discipline of real engineering yet they expect to take equal part (and claim credit) in engineering projects.

That's how we get disasters such as the 737Max and I'd bet London to a brick it won't be the last.

I'm not alone in holding this view: https://www.fceia.unr.edu.ar/asist/gibbs00.html

Nah, managers are usually the ones that are not prepared for the rigors and discipline, because managers view writing code as something both easy and kind of wishy-washy.

"Software projects are never ending, always chasing ever changing requirements."

Exactly, and that's the problem. Writing software isn't engineering (it ought to be—my opinion and that of many others). Read this (things are actually worse since it was written):

www.researchgate.net/profile/Wayt-Gibbs/publication/247573088_Software%27s_Chronic_Crisis/links/0046353b4cb57cc197000000/Softwares-Chronic-Crisis.pdf?

Try this link (unfortunately it's without images and diagrams but is easily accessible): https://www.fceia.unr.edu.ar/asist/gibbs00.html

> I'd be much happier crossing a bridge built by a structural engineer who has had certain rules (safety margins, etc.) drummed into him ad nauseam.

If the bridge passes inspection and is considered safe then your attitude would be a form of elitism no? The point from some of your parents is that they can do just a good of a job or better.

OK, so let's avoid elitism by doing away with standards altogether. No doubt, doing away with the ISO would bring joy to the treasurers of contributing member states. Whilst we're at it, why not do way with the Metric system which would bring cheers from Trump's backward America?

What I said has absolutely nothing to do with elitism. Your point is a circular argument that spirals inward and ends up going nowhere.

Professionalism and excellence not only have to be learned but also require diligence and persistence under the guidance of skilled professional educators, it's why we have universities.

It's nonsense to suggest that parents can do a better job than professional eductors/training. Perhaps that notion comes from only-in-America homeschooling.

Where I come from we'd never entertain the idea for a moment.

I think you missed the point and have some misunderstanding that the self taught engineer doesn’t follow standards, which then points back to the elitism.

To put it more simply, you have a misunderstanding that going to school means your better in an age when every bit of knowledge is available online for free.

I’ve worked with so many engineers with degrees that just churn out code. None of them seemed to care about maintainability or anything other than checking the boxes for the next promotion. A self taught engineer cares so much about the craft to teach it to themselves. The knowledge gained is the same, and syllabuses from major colleges are available online for free. The only thing missing is passing the tests for the piece of paper that says you passed the tests. That’s it. I’ve also found that most people with a degree only care so much about the craft as they care about not having to go back to school to learn a new one, or to put it another way, they are only financially invested.

> Where I come from we'd never entertain the idea for a moment.

Where exactly is this so I know not to visit? I’m one of those degenerates that are self taught so you should let me know so I stay out and don’t offend you.

> that must be known

That sounds rather foolish. That must have knowledge often becomes a layer of vanity concerns to cloak the ignorance lying beneath as defined by comfort and not utility.

For example if developers are formally educated in the style of OOP with classes for inheritance then for most of those people all programming must resemble that style even when it does not apply and costs more to use. Any attempt to deviate from such familiarity often results in purely emotional responses. This such nonsense becomes frustrating when it unnecessarily limits work progression.

> a bridge built by a structural engineer

Civil engineers are qualified by license while software developers are not. That distinction is monumental.

It sounds more like corporate culture selects for people who are rarely self taught because they will fall outside the "meritocracy" parade.

"We want you to be good, not better than us"

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