Quick Poll
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
MS in Engineering Physics. Minus 10% of the thesis, which I didn't finish before getting into this business 8 years ago. Thought I could finish it in parallel with the real job, but real life came in its way... :cool:
-- Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - Bertrand Russel
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fat_boy wrote:
Agree, but there is a HELL of a lot of theoretical stuff you learn through a formal educaiton that you never learn on the job.
Firstly I didn't say I had NO education and I don't know of anyone in the business who didn't have at least 1 CSE in Dom Sci. :-) I was motivated enough to try and learn everything I could and still (much to the consternation of the wife and famille) spend a great deal of my time playing and studying and trying to get under the hood so that I can understand the minutae of what it is I have chosen to do with the whys not just the hows and I (and many other self-taughts that I know) enjoy the theory side of comp sci. So stop being such a fucking snob.
fat_boy wrote:
Lilke someone at Microsoft and trying to work out just why they did it a certain way.
Now I know you're having a laugh. Anyway, I, too, have a master: she's staring at me right now...
I guess the difference is that I am original a mechanical engineer and I know that one cannot develop the required skill to do such a job from first principles. There is no way you can work out for yourself Youngs moduus of elasticity, polar moments of inertia, bernoulis equation (for flow dynamics) and so on. The difference with computer engineering is that there is no physical world to play with, on the the creation of some guy at microsoft, or a scnadanivian, or some other individual, so it makes the subject matter less 'cast in concrete' and more up to the quirks of human nature. Computer engineering is too much a spotty 17 year old playing at home in his bedroom, rather than designing a bridge, or a car component. However, there are still aspects of software engineering that are real engineering, and for this, I found formal training very usefull.
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
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fat_boy wrote:
And that knowledge can help a hell of a lot when it comes to umderstanding why someone else did it that way
And you are somehow incapable of learning this on your own without a formal education? Did society forget how to read? how to pull a list of Doctorate thesis and learn what has already been done by others? attend conferences and learn research areas beyond education? Did these disappear recently? did educating yourself get turned over to someone else recently? the question was about "formal" education, not education in general. You don't have to go to a university to learn these things. In fact the work out of Georgia institute of technology helped me a lot. I simply never attended there.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
You got a five for this? The whole point of a university is that it brings together, concentrates, all that yopu mention here into one place of learning, so in a short time one can learn what is required for a career in a particular profession. Also, how does the individual determine WHAT needs to be learnt? As some one who is also a qualified mechanical engineer let me tell you that it would be next to impossible to learn THAT subject matter without a formal education. The only reason there are so many cowboys in software is that it isnt a propper discipline, it is more an attempt to understand the workings of someones mind when they put together some part of an OS, or system. (And dont tell me that C++ with all its 'inheritance' and 'polymorphism' (again the creation of an individual not nature) is anywhere near as demanding as working out the stress on a steel framed building and calculating the required beam sizes.))
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I used to work as a SysAdmin, when I was given the opportunity to get into development. I have no formal training whatsoever (besides 3 years CS in High School with Pascal), and I can write good, clean code according to standards better than most CS grads. I don't think it's really a matter of getting formal education or not. If you don't stay interested, involved and continually evolve to new languages, practices and developments, you are not going to be any good anyway. I know of CS graduates who work in management in various comapanies who couldn't write decent code or development better solutions because they have fallen behind on the standards of today. In the 4-odd years I've been developing professionally I've learn't C#, some C++, SQL, Javascript, some VB (because of legacy code), Python and PHP. And I can write intricate code to solve difficult problems only because I've stayed involved. I've learn't more from community support groups (like our local .NET group - SADeveloper.net), Microsoft events like DevDays and TechEd, and networking and learning from some brilliant developers than I would have learn't in the same period doing some formal degree. Yes you can get a theoretical level of understanding, but I think the formal training (degrees that is) "boxes" your mind, you forget to think creatively and out of the box on problems.
________________________________ Dewald Troskie GIS Developer "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't"
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I hold a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Straight after the college at the first company I worked for we had a guy who ended his education after high school and he was the most experienced developer of the bunch. I learned quite a few things from him. :) I still think I don't know much. College taught me SQL for the most part, I guess. And PHP which I don't use anymore. We had C++ in programming classes, but I think the level of it was not satisfactory, pretty basic stuff, I never programmed in C++ after that. I had to learn Delphi on my own and not so long ago moved into .NET field - also on my own. Please, show some understanding when I ask you stupid questions. :P Overall, I think the major gain is the diploma itself.
Kind regards, Pawel Krakowiak
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You got a five for this? The whole point of a university is that it brings together, concentrates, all that yopu mention here into one place of learning, so in a short time one can learn what is required for a career in a particular profession. Also, how does the individual determine WHAT needs to be learnt? As some one who is also a qualified mechanical engineer let me tell you that it would be next to impossible to learn THAT subject matter without a formal education. The only reason there are so many cowboys in software is that it isnt a propper discipline, it is more an attempt to understand the workings of someones mind when they put together some part of an OS, or system. (And dont tell me that C++ with all its 'inheritance' and 'polymorphism' (again the creation of an individual not nature) is anywhere near as demanding as working out the stress on a steel framed building and calculating the required beam sizes.))
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
There are as many "cowboy" programmers with college educations primarily because they don't teach it in school. They get this idea that if they didn't learn it in school it doesn't exist. Yes I am familure with mechanical engineering. more than my brother and it's his degree. So there are still no books? you are incapable of learning from text books?
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Semi-Serious question : What is IT ? Are you including programmers, developers ? For me, an IT professional is a glorified sys-admin. I have a bachelor in Computer Science; most of the courses were theoretical courses , and all of the programming work was done on specialized languages (prolog, Simula, VHDL, Miranda ...). There was NO C or C++ courses or stuff like that; or even less sys-admin related courses.
Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad
I have a bit of a mixture. An electronic apprentiship, some formal university computer science training (but not to degree level), and lots of self taught knowledge. As a developer where a lot of self teaching is involved, I think there are 2 very significant parts of my training, both of them from university ... 1. The formal training involving hardware elements and macro level machine code (CS300), leading to developing a simple compiler. (on DEC - PDP systems) 2. Internal data structures using C (CS340) (lots of indirection involved - really hammering pointers). Having a good grounding in these 2 helps a great deal when learning new languages like C#, which is what I do now. I work with a group, and have worked with others in the past, who have not benefitted from these basics, and I find the difference in understanding what's going on when the programs execute and how systems hang together almost screams out. I am one of the 'old boys' whose learning started before moving into the OO world. For me it was an easy switch, but I can easily see it being difficult for mainframe cobol developers. My route was C, C++, C# (with basket weaving, better known as VB in there as well). I also wonder if starting to learn programming at the end - i.e. starting with something like Java, does developers a limiting disservice instead of starting at the beginning with good old C, or something even more basic like machine code. Ken Ede - lead developer - Europa Group.
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I have a bit of a mixture. An electronic apprentiship, some formal university computer science training (but not to degree level), and lots of self taught knowledge. As a developer where a lot of self teaching is involved, I think there are 2 very significant parts of my training, both of them from university ... 1. The formal training involving hardware elements and macro level machine code (CS300), leading to developing a simple compiler. (on DEC - PDP systems) 2. Internal data structures using C (CS340) (lots of indirection involved - really hammering pointers). Having a good grounding in these 2 helps a great deal when learning new languages like C#, which is what I do now. I work with a group, and have worked with others in the past, who have not benefitted from these basics, and I find the difference in understanding what's going on when the programs execute and how systems hang together almost screams out. I am one of the 'old boys' whose learning started before moving into the OO world. For me it was an easy switch, but I can easily see it being difficult for mainframe cobol developers. My route was C, C++, C# (with basket weaving, better known as VB in there as well). I also wonder if starting to learn programming at the end - i.e. starting with something like Java, does developers a limiting disservice instead of starting at the beginning with good old C, or something even more basic like machine code. Ken Ede - lead developer - Europa Group.
Learning the basics of computer architecture,and machine language should be a primary requisite of any Comp Si course or nearly any science course. Its as important as mathematics. I started out in a BSEE regimen before the advent of digital electronics, microprocessors and such where just being developed so a course in basic computer architecture including generic machine programming changed my life. I went to work for Motorola, doing in house test equipment design, while still in school. Got involved in programming on 6800 and z80's and 8080 processors. Now I use VB, C#, for most stuff but because of the training in the basics, can learn new languages with ease. One thing of course about C.S. courses is they don't teach most of the real world skills that are needed.
When prediction serves as polemic, it nearly always fails. Our prefrontal lobes can probe the future only when they aren’t leashed by dogma. The worst enemy of agile anticipation is our human propensity for comfy self-delusion. David Brin Buddha Dave
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Learning the basics of computer architecture,and machine language should be a primary requisite of any Comp Si course or nearly any science course. Its as important as mathematics. I started out in a BSEE regimen before the advent of digital electronics, microprocessors and such where just being developed so a course in basic computer architecture including generic machine programming changed my life. I went to work for Motorola, doing in house test equipment design, while still in school. Got involved in programming on 6800 and z80's and 8080 processors. Now I use VB, C#, for most stuff but because of the training in the basics, can learn new languages with ease. One thing of course about C.S. courses is they don't teach most of the real world skills that are needed.
When prediction serves as polemic, it nearly always fails. Our prefrontal lobes can probe the future only when they aren’t leashed by dogma. The worst enemy of agile anticipation is our human propensity for comfy self-delusion. David Brin Buddha Dave
A very good point about the real world skills. The soft skills are so important as most of us work with other people. I don't think university can help here; that comes from experience and I'm still learning. Completely agree with understanding the basics - that's what I was trying to get at. Ken.
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I had formal training. helped a fair amount. did all the relational database and design stuff, drew pretty pictures with flow charts and stuff, and then eventually got onto the actual programming. did JAVA, and then a half language of C# (ie, without database, like serious basics of it). I then wrote an application that my dad had wanted. suddenly, SQL made sense, I didn't find it to be the major mission it was. I was programming in sharp develop, and my knowledge of syntax grew fairly well. I wasn't reading out of the book anymore =P. learnt asp.net at my current job, have gotten fairly decent at it. but anywho, I feel that the formal training I received helped me understand programming more than if I hadn't had it. after all, alot of what we look for these days is syntax to do something, but understand the logic behind it =P anywho, that's my 2 cents worth.
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I have an honours math degree, with a minor in CS. To get a minor you just needed two courses. The first one I took was the CS core programming course, and I actually had a hard time getting accepted into it because the dean thought it was too hard for normal non CS majors. It was mostly Pascal syntax. At the end of the course I told the professor that I felt I was wasting my time so I didn't want to take any more CS courses. I took one in numerical methods instead. Through friends, I learned later that CS courses got more interesting as they got more advanced. But when I graduated with math and no job prospects, I started hacking on my Atari 1040ST. I landed a job as a programmer six months later and I've been earning my living by programming for the last 20 years. The math has helped me do 3D graphics and image processing, but I wish I had a better foundation for compilers and graph theory. This is a really flakey career. You've got to want it badly, because education alone is only going to carry you for the first couple of years. After that much time passes, the industry is going to pull the rug out from under you; you'd better be ready to learn new stuff. - Owen -
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I think u have to learn basic computer knowledge.It is very important for everyone.In univercity,I learn a lot of computer knowledge.Maybe it will help me to think about how the computer to run meanwhile help me to program. I think the formal training is important.Just that very basic knowledge.Such as OS,compliter,DS and so on.The newer knowledge,the more change it does.The basic knowledge changes very slowly.I hope it will help you.
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Where I never used the word degree. There are lots of Great people who cannot come together to make a successful project to save there lives. When I measure success of a project, the end result is not the only metric. Many companies employ hundreds and spend millions to make a simple data driven application with the mistaken belief that the only way to do it is the traditional big business way. People that have learned the true way without a formal cs background are the exception and not the rule. In fact write 3 nested for loops and go ask someone what the runtime is and tell me the answer. So many don't understand or don't even care to understand and well ... Wait, you know what, I should stop complaining. 100% of my consulting business is cleaning up this sort of mess.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest HemingwayI have a BS degree in Computer Science and written programs in over a dozen different languages. If someone tells me they are a "insert programming language here" programmer I worry. My experience is that this is where a formal education helps. You are exposed to multiple languages, the domains where they are used and the reason they are effective. A programmer can learn SQL but they will be more effective if they have also been exposed Relational Algebra and Relational Calculas which is the mathematics behind the language. Knowing why and how a language is created is a powerfull tool when it comes to learning a new language. There are competent, even excellent, programmers that are self taught but in my opinion they are the exception rather than the rule.
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I have a computer science degree. The problem I see with developers that don't have formal training is that many of them don't have the building block knowledge to develop good code. Many of them are just searching for 1 of the thousands of different ways to solve a problem, and don't worry whether it's a good solution or not. (Keep in mind this is my experience at my job, we have a lot of older developers). Concepts such as OO and database design are not well understood at my current job. We have a lot of mainframe programmers coding cobol, but using OO compilers. LOL.
Interesting - but not universally accepted premise. In a former postion, the computer (VAX Cluster) security officer had her degree in CS. In her opinion, Chemists and Physicists made much better programmers than CS majors. Perhaps she was just stroking my ego as I was one of the former. One could hypothesize many reasons for her opinion. A simple one could be that we concerned ourselves with app development at the user side, and not network/systems/etc. Now, this doesn't have to disagree with your premise in the sense that only a small subset of non-CS programmers came from the rigors of such degrees - they could be the exception rather than the rule. Some of my last work in Chemistry were Monte-Carlo models of Surface diffusion. Loops, lookups, nearest neighbor occupancy in a matrix - 10's of Millions of Iterations. Don't think they weren't efficient: these were time-shared systems. However, I would even agree with some of the horrors I saw in those days (of Fortran) - functions with 132 arguments (called repeatedly in a loop) were written by engineers. Us real science guys recreationally learned Macro-Assembler for the system, knew what that meant, and winced in disbelief. On the other hand, I've seen text-book quality code written (outsourced to India, actually) at my current employer. Computer Science Major code that also made me wince in disbelief. There is a mind-set to doing this stuff right. With a little luck, you can apply imagination and use insight, as well - and maintain a willingness to trash your own work to do it better.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
Entered the computer world in 1972, starting with a Dec PDP-8, using its machine language. NO formal training at all, dug it out from the very few books, in fact found only two Dec books to work with, yes, still have the little books, which are very dog eared and falling apart. My first program I bit switched it in using the front panel switches on the CPU. The box had 8K of memory! From that start, developed the programs to run the entire scope of programs for the company, which was not a small company, example running two 600 lines per minute printers full blast at least 12 hours per day for reports, remember everything had to come out on paper. WHY no formal training – the Universities where running so far behind in technologies compared to the real world of business!! keith
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
Went for BS degree in EET, then MS in computer science. Damn, what a jerk I was... biggest waste of time in my life. At the end of the day just do it... OJT makes all things right.
MrPlankton
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
As my mini-bio notes, in real life I was a research chemist. The real thing - including doing the first Uranium Isotope Enrichment using lasers in a molecular (room-temperature) process.* Using a computer (no PCs, yet) was often taught as part of the Quantum Chemistry course, used, for example, to model a particle in a box with various types of barriers. Rudimentary coding was taught to all - professors in these fields typically spent their time (actually that of grad students) creating 20 Kg decks of punch-cards to do their theoretical work. Computer usage permeated the field as soon as they became available. Computers were a great recreational outlet, and the "new" 16-bit A/D converters and a PC/AT gave me a chance to teach a computer to do my work for me. And then, simulation of idealized chemical interactions. Always more cpu-intensive: always requiring rethinking code to make it run faster. This was very serious business: a model that would run on a modern PC in 10 minutes might take 6 cpu-hours. Ultimately, life took various turns - I ended up living where no work exists for a research chemist - and ended up writing POS for Dry Cleaning OH how the might hath fallen! Things are better now. But life without A CO2-TEA laser to blast local vermin is just not the same. No di-methyl formamide to dissolve set-epoxy glue. Nor seperatory funnels to produce top quality pepper oil using fresh peppers. And the UN inspectors finding a cave where Sadaam's scientists had research papers on enriching uranium - including by use of lasers. *for those of you how must know, the compound used was Uranium Hexamethoxide.
"Every now and then, the past moves ahead of us in order that we might face it." - Balboos HaGadol
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
CS is vitally important to the success of any project
Phhbbbt! (that's me making a rasberry sound at you). Utter tripe and hogwash! Degrees and committees don't make sucessful projects, good people do.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt
Amen!
MrPlankton
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How many IT professionals here have had formal training and how many have not. Personally, I went to college for graphic design, and half way through changed to physics. Some time during all that I started working for Compaq tech support, and after playing with some web technologies got into their system admin team. From there I started doing lots of database work, ASP 3.0 & VB 6. And by then decided programming was where I wanted to be, and after 5 years in college in seemingly unrelated fields, decided not to go back to school for IT. I feel like I probably missed out on a lot not having formal training. I did take some programming courses, some out of interest and some as requirements for a physics degree. But not to a meaningful extent. Just curious about how many IT pros haven't had much formal training. And from those who did get IT related degrees, what do you feel it really gave you?
Try code model generation tools at BoneSoft.com.
I first learned FORTRAN 1 back in high school in the dark ages, but then the local computer didn't have enough memory for a FORTRAN compiler, so our class learned to program in assembly for an IBM 1620. In college I studied petroleum engineering and took a FORTRAN course. That was the extent of my formal computer training. However, I worked with some great CS grad students and learned as much as possible from them. I wrote much of the software needed for my MS Thesis in Algol. Later, when PC's came around, I learned Basic, then Pascal, then C, then Forth, then Prolog, then C++, now C#, and probably a few programming languages I've forgotten. I've also read about every book on computer science I could get my hands on. I found that having the basic machine architecture in mind helps me write efficient numerical code and after beating structure and objects into my head, I can learn most any language fairly quickly. I also got into real time programming and automated control systems in grad school - from and engineering perspective, not programming or computer science - there was no IT back then. Since then I've developed several commercial real time systems (mostly programming in C and optimizing in assembly) and play around with PICs and other dinky little chips for fun. My main regret of not having studied more formally is that I sometimes feel I lack some overall design and architecture. Although I've learned a lot of those sorts of things over the years, I know I benefit from working with a team. I benefit from them and they benefit from my basic understanding and ability to code lightning fast numerical algorithms. Ahhh, if only I didn't have to earn a living. I could have stayed in school forever and still be learning!
The Petrogeek