On 1/30/08, Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote: > On Jan 30, 2008 2:14 PM, Joshua Zeidner wrote: > > center. I find myself having to hobble my own skills and training in > > order to please the various parochial department managers and other > > kinds of 'self-proclaimed geniouses' when working in Phx. For > > instance encountering someone who insists that a CS degree is > > meaningless but knowledge of 'smart pointers' in C++ is invaluable and > > an objective metric of your total knowledge. -jmz > > Interesting. That is another discussion entirely, but requiring a CS > degree does weed out a lot of people who have no idea about computer > architecture. Most importantly it shows who put their chips in the pot. A CS degree is not something you just mail away for, it takes hard work, drive, and most importantly direction. I can't tell you how many self-described 'technical experts' I've run into who basically picked up PHP a few months ago and hung out a shingle. > This is usually a good thing, because such people > usually build poor software. However, there are many tech geniuses > that have no formal degrees. Michal Zalewski is one I can think of > off the top of my head. The best hackers come from E. Europe because the disparity in currency value. If you live there you can make a decent living learning the arcana of the TCP/IP stack for instance. Secondly, the education rate there is comparitively higher than other comparable 3rd world nations due to the influence of the now defunct USSR. Finally there are few laws that punish nefarious activity on the wire. So if Michal is now working for Google, good for him! -jmz --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss