Re:Ask HN: How does a self-taught programmer get as skilled ...
by bordercases on Thursday November 26, 2015 @04:53PM
(#10634906)
You can only know what problems you're going to encounter to within a certain margin. This both implies that despite having little knowledge of individual/"standard" circumstances, in the long-run you may be able to ensure that certain problems are going to come up and that you should be prepared for them. To me, this is what constitutes the "standard". So 'skilled at what?' is a somewhat nebulous way of answering the question when there are in fact basic skills that allow one to manage one's career proactively.
Granted the OP could probably do better to clarify his goals for better targeted advice. Personally I would suggest to him/her that they should look at the MIT syllabus, or a trade-school syllabus, and go from there.
What a CS degree will tend to provide (but not always) is a set of abstractions and a university perhaps may provide some different patterns of thought (but again not always).
That said, there's nothing every self-taught programmer (or CS grad) should learn. There's no standard individual. There's no standard set of circumstances. Sometimes the best answer is using something off the shelf. Sometimes the best answer is reinventing the wheel. Sometimes it's cut and paste. A CS degree (lack thereof) doesn't make someone wiser...or a good fit for a team or a lot of other things that matter.
That said, there are reasons to get a CS degree that have nothing to do with skill. There's social expectations. There's internal motivation. There's the simple pleasure offered by the opportunity/excuseto study something of interest for a few years.
Good luck.