I'm speaking as a self-taught guy who has gone pretty far.
First of all, all good programmers have the ability to teach themselves, because this is the definition of a good programmer. People who stick with what they knew three years ago are obsolete.
So the question is whether the pure autodidact strategy is a good idea. It isn't. There are far, far more failed or incompetent self-taught programmers than there are failed CS students. Observe the "Teach yourself X in Y days" bookshelf and the kind of programmer they produce. Could they have sucked less with better instruction? We'll never know.
Also, the stuff you learn on the job is nothing like the depth of knowledge you get from taking a real course. The rule of thumb is that 3 years on the job equals one year of university. And I find that to be about right. After more than 10 years of doing this professionally, I'm vaguely the equal of a really good Stanford grad. I have many more tricks up my sleeve, but they know a few things very very well. Passion works up to a point, but part of the job is also learning the really boring stuff that nobody likes.
So yeah, I do think I'm maybe more "original" just by dint of having a different background. But there are penalties for that too.
First of all, all good programmers have the ability to teach themselves, because this is the definition of a good programmer. People who stick with what they knew three years ago are obsolete.
So the question is whether the pure autodidact strategy is a good idea. It isn't. There are far, far more failed or incompetent self-taught programmers than there are failed CS students. Observe the "Teach yourself X in Y days" bookshelf and the kind of programmer they produce. Could they have sucked less with better instruction? We'll never know.
Also, the stuff you learn on the job is nothing like the depth of knowledge you get from taking a real course. The rule of thumb is that 3 years on the job equals one year of university. And I find that to be about right. After more than 10 years of doing this professionally, I'm vaguely the equal of a really good Stanford grad. I have many more tricks up my sleeve, but they know a few things very very well. Passion works up to a point, but part of the job is also learning the really boring stuff that nobody likes.
So yeah, I do think I'm maybe more "original" just by dint of having a different background. But there are penalties for that too.