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Discussion on: Self-taught programmers

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Leighton Darkins

Full disclosure: "Formally Educated" programmer here.

If there's one thing I've learned after many years, and a variety of roles / organisations. It's that education means bugger all in terms of the quality/skill of a developer.

Formally Educated: Bad
Formally Educated: Good
Self-taught: Bad
Self-taught: Good

All of these cases exist, in abundance. Cleaving to some rule that the best developers are "x" is a bit foolish. It'll only lead you towards making poor assumptions about people and their skills. And you know what happens when you assume...

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I'm a firm believer that there are infinite paths to being great at anything. And at least 50% of those paths don't start with formal education.