Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by eloff on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:53PM
(#20508180)
It's not really that hard. For example I made a queue that outperforms the lynx queue. My fundamental instinct after reading that paper was that there's no way faults out perform bounds checks in a modern, speculating out of order CPU. I ran some tests and yes my instinct is correct. Maybe the result wouldn't hold under peer review for some reason, I just tested a few more ideas / criticisms with a colleague and moved on. I don't personally benefit from trying to publish the result and I have enough demands on my time.
I'm not a genius, unless you count an online IQ test I took in my early twenties, but I'm deeply skeptical of those. It's true I'm well above average though, so perhaps my experiences don't generalize. I don't believe that though. I still think it's motivation and goals that count.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by asdfman123 on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @02:09PM
(#20508846)
The person you replied to is wrong. This is peak stereotype:
> I'm not a genius, unless you count an online IQ test I took in my early twenties, but I'm deeply skeptical of those
You do sound smart though. Just... one of the benefits of a challenging formal education is a large dose of humility.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by eloff on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @02:28PM
(#20509008)
Haha, well I'm not sure I can honestly deny an accusation of being a genius, at the same time I'm not sure I can affirm it either - and just to talk about it seems to imply a lack of humility. Irrespective, there are lots of kinds of intelligence and I'm blessed with some of the less useful forms of it that happen to test well.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by jshowa3 on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @02:51PM
(#20509177)
So, in reality, you have no idea if your idea is truly better and it looks like you just ran some specific test cases and assumed it applied.
Still paper worthy, but far from thinking that you made anything better than published literature.
And the goal isn't to "personally benefit" it's to know that your ideas survive scrutiny and contribute something meaningful to the world.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by eloff on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @06:43PM
(#20510902)
You're making a lot of assumptions there about which your mistaken. I don't need to defend myself here. If that's what you want to believe, that's fine.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by jshowa3 on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @10:38AM
(#20515718)
The only assumptions I'm making is what you explicitly stated. And the cardinal rule is, what's stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Either way, if you don't want to defend yourself. That's fine.
You can probably imagine why many people wouldn't believe you. "My work is amazing but I am too lazy to publish it" is a peak stereotype for self-educated people. My prior on this being ignorance rather than genius is super high. And if it is true that you are a once in a generation genius who could outpace the research community then your experience is completely useless for others, given that you'd be so much smarter than a typical person who is doing self-education and trying to get a job.