A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

Re:A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code? by roywiggins on Sunday November 03, 2019 @01:41AM (#21432540)

Exposure to the CS curriculum at least gives you a leg up in asking questions and working out the shape of your lack-of-knowledge.

Like, knowing that automata and complexity theory exists and remembering roughly how it works means that if something that needs that comes up, at least you have a sense of what you forgot about it.

For instance, having taken a database class where we worked in the relational algebra has helped me fluently write okay SQL even if I couldn't write out a sentence in the relational algebra to save my life.

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Re:A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code? by scarface74 on Sunday November 03, 2019 @08:01AM (#21433617)

I’ve never taken a relational algebra class in my life and neither have most dba’s. They learned sql by learning sql.

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Re:A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code? by roywiggins on Sunday November 03, 2019 @11:34AM (#21434826)

That's of course a perfectly good way to learn SQL and probably much cheaper. I'm not saying that you need relational algebra to write a query, that would be silly. I just mean that learning that stuff does stick with you.

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