Is a CS degree required to make a good programmer?

I’ve been thinking about this for some time now and wanted to jot down my thoughts, but this post Hackers and Fighters by Mark Traver captures beautifully my feelings on this subject.

There are a few things which are different in Indian universities which I’ll talk about in another post.

6 Comments

  • You're just a programmer without a degree who wished you had one. Just by reading your post one realizes that you completely misunderstood what building system is about

  • Hi Twain, Could you elaborate on what exactly I have misunderstood about building systems?

  • I really don't think you *need* a CS degree to be a good (or even great) programmer. But it helps. I don't have a CS degree, did study CS as a minor but my qualifications are in Psychology. What the CS degree gives you is an understanding of the foundations of CS, algorithmic programming etc...but if someone with no CS degree becomes a programmer it was a choice, usually a passion which they followed through on. I've been responsible for hiring teams of developers, managing developers and leading teams as an architect and all I can say is that the person is more important than the degree they have.
    Any half decent company cares more about experience and apritude rather than how you spent four years of your life; in some fields a wider range of experience is actually more useful that an individual who has a one track career path.
    One essay I really love on the subject is Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham..he does have a graduate degree in CS but sees more parallels with art than science in programming...

  • I've seen a lot of people (high school grads/associate degree holders) without a CS degree writing very sloppy code... They may get the job done but down the road you see many more bugs, security holes, and unusable code in their applications...

    Like everything else, there're exceptions but one without a CS degree needs to read a lot with dedication in order to become a good programmer.

    By the way, a CS degree only covers the very basic of programming. It's more like teaching peopole how to THINK.

  • What I don't understand is the assumption that someone without a CS degree can't learn theoretical CS. It's really not that hard for a "street hacker" to learn all about algorithmic complexity and NP-Completeness.

    To the extent that it has any value to what he's doing, a good hacker will learn this stuff. And he'll learn it from a variety of sources instead of a single biased prof, and he'll learn the latest perspectives on it rather than what in the textbook.

  • Hi All

    I believe that CS will be your base for your career progress in any organization ,and professional Certificate is your door to get in the organization .

    In all cases If somebody interested to become a great developer, here is complete guide taking you step by step in becoming developer.

    Please visit http://www.dotnetbh.com/Default.aspx for more details.

    Mahdi Al Aradi
    MCP,MCSD,MCAD

Comments have been disabled for this content.