symbioidlj | jwz, the high school graduate, great hire of norvig... synchronicity (Reply)

And to top off the synchronicities for the evening...

Norvig's "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" makes reference to an LJ user

jwz who I recently friended while looking for coders and having seen his name pop up on

evan's LJ a bit, I added him. According to the article:

If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't be enough. "Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter" says Eric Raymond, author of The New Hacker's Dictionary. One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub.

(the programmer he's referring to, if you follow the links he gave, refers to jwz. The "great software" is xemacs and mozilla and his night club is DNA Lounge... apparently, jwz says he's no longer a hacker or something like that. anyways, just a nice little touch)

I apologize to all the non-techy people for my lack of non-techy posts lately.