pollockk (7/22/2008)
In general, I agree, and certainly the attitude to certificates as described has been a widespread attitude anywhere I have ever worked over the last 15 years (UK).There is distinct difference, I find, in people with and without a CS degree. It's a subtle thing, but it is in database design that I actually see it come out. People with the solid theory design less problematic databases and usually have a better feel for set-based operations.
In the non-database end of things, grads are more likely to have 'got' pointers.
But maybe its correlation not causality 🙂
Passion? hmm, it's just a job after all, maybe that's expecting too much from most of us.
Passion? Let's see - you pay me the same whether I have passion or not. You simply use that as one of many excuses you can pull out of the review hat to support why raises are so low for everyone. No, I don't think passion is an appropriate thing to look at given companies unwillingness to pay for it.
Pointers, yes, maybe degreed individuals are "more likely" to "get it". Not guaranteed though.
Correlation versus causality, definitely right on with that point. A degree does not cause anything. It does correlate though.
Lastly, and the one thing I slightly disagree with, people with a solid theory background may be a problem in that they go too far. Normalization is a highly debated topic, and not one we should get into here. But it is an example of a topic where education sometimes causes issues. I had a professor that used the term "normalize until it hurts, denormalize until it works". Not sure of the original source, but the fact that he shared that with us was a benefit. I am pretty sure professors tend to teach what they perceive as the only way to do things, real world issues are irrelevant to them. Current social issues being a great example of that. Humble professors are, in my experience, not as common as the egotistical ones that seem to run post secondary education, and push their theories on the rest of society. This is bad enough with social issues. The recent push of this behavior into technical issues is a huge issue.
Dave