Let Go, Standard Library From Community

[Sean Kelly]

David B. Held wrote:
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>> [...]
>> This is one thing I really lament about my uni education thus far.  Two
>> topics that basically have *never* been covered in even minimal detail
>> have been optimisation and debugging.

I took a university course on software testing a while back and found it 
to be fairly useful.  It opened with proofs of correctness and went from 
there.  Not directly related to debugging, but close enough to bear 
mentioning.

> If you really want to be a good programmer, you need to take your 
> education into your own hands.  I would venture to claim that the 
> majority of experts in the world learned most of what they know from 
> self-study, and not from classroom lectures and textbooks.

Definitely.

> If you are really serious about your education, you will soon find your 
> classes boring, because most of your learning will be self-directed. But 
> you have to be fairly motivated to engage in that kind of learning, and 
> everyone has different personalities.  In the end, a diploma only proves 
> that you will jump through hoops for The Man (which is important for 
> getting a job in the corporate world, where docility is rewarded and 
> innovation is discouraged).

True enough, but a lot of importance is placed on degrees nevertheless. 
    My advice would be not to go to college until you're ready to take 
it seriously, because there's no point in paying for a service you're 
not going to use.  But don't look to formal education as the beginning 
and end of the learning process.  In the professional sector, 
credentials might get you an interview but they won't get you a job.


Sean