While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about the quality of developers joining the workforce.
> To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch. It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice.
> "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college."
To be fair, that quote is right at the end of the article.
It doesn't take long to discover that university education is an inefficient sloth, a waste of time and basically a broken system for almost all majors.
Its incredibly good at educating, and fairly efficient. Training is better off at a vo-tech. Most of the people attending just want a credential proving they are trained, its their meal ticket. They're obviously not going to be huge fans of a liberal education curriculum. Yet their employers demand credentials from educational facilities not training facilities, so the 2-yr vo-tech is seen as toilet paper.
Its a messed up situation. They make an excellent product, but most of the people going don't want it, but they can't get something else because the market demands they attend. Very much like complaining a 5-star restaurant sucks because they don't have cheap hamburgers and a drive-thru, or the reverse situation.
I would agree with the quote, learning a skill while going to college is very challenging. I found University to be great at teaching my how to learn and giving me the fundamentals, but I'm on my own if I want to learn specific skills.
I think you overestimate the quality of developer in the outside, "non-hacker-news" world. Labor is always the biggest outlay management worries about; if they don't have technical experience, there are tons of small to medium sized companies that will hire someone at 20$ or 30$ an hour with no degree to bang out bad GWT or jQuery.
In the enterprise ( or small enterprise ) world, when was the last time a web dev needed to write a bloom filter in Go?
You're probably right. I try to surround myself with other people who are passionate about what they do and are trying to become better developers.
Even if someone didn't have technical experience, banging out code at a small company could be the starting point, for someone who is driven, to develop their skills and attain that six figure position.
