I don't have a formal CS background either - completely self taught. Started in about 1984 on a ZX Spectrum, and later moved to a Commodore Amiga, then a DOS based PC, then to Windows, then finally to Web based stuff (primarily developing on Linux/Macs). Working with bits was very necessary for dealing with direct manipulation of memory (video memory or whatever), and was/is an extremely efficient way to implement 'flags' within variables. Admittedly programming has moved past a lot of low level stuff these days, probably to the overall detriment of code efficiency and actual understanding of what goes on underneath the high level stuff.
Binary is used at a low level for sure, but it's really just looking at numbers in another way - that can be exceptionally useful in many situations.
Maybe! I see what you mean about memory manipulation but there are whole realms of programming people can do without ever worrying about memory. It's kind of like how most people who can drive don't have to worry about how their car is built--which allows the car, or the higher-level languages and frameworks, to become more and more advanced, efficient, and accessible.
I'm trying to learn low-level concepts now, partly for fun and partly because I'm about to start working in Security and it becomes important in e.g. network packet analysis and stopping memory-related vulnerabilities. But I know plenty of people who make whole programming careers without handling memory directly, in large part because they become experts in some other concept that abstracting away memory allows them to focus on.
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I don't have a formal CS background either - completely self taught. Started in about 1984 on a ZX Spectrum, and later moved to a Commodore Amiga, then a DOS based PC, then to Windows, then finally to Web based stuff (primarily developing on Linux/Macs). Working with bits was very necessary for dealing with direct manipulation of memory (video memory or whatever), and was/is an extremely efficient way to implement 'flags' within variables. Admittedly programming has moved past a lot of low level stuff these days, probably to the overall detriment of code efficiency and actual understanding of what goes on underneath the high level stuff.
Binary is used at a low level for sure, but it's really just looking at numbers in another way - that can be exceptionally useful in many situations.
Maybe! I see what you mean about memory manipulation but there are whole realms of programming people can do without ever worrying about memory. It's kind of like how most people who can drive don't have to worry about how their car is built--which allows the car, or the higher-level languages and frameworks, to become more and more advanced, efficient, and accessible.
I'm trying to learn low-level concepts now, partly for fun and partly because I'm about to start working in Security and it becomes important in e.g. network packet analysis and stopping memory-related vulnerabilities. But I know plenty of people who make whole programming careers without handling memory directly, in large part because they become experts in some other concept that abstracting away memory allows them to focus on.