[xornull]

Today I'd like to share my views of what is going on in the programming world.

Usually what I see these days are a bunch of good-for-nothings who look at their college courses
and they see "Programming" and they have heard that programmers earn a bunch of money!
and since a bunch of good for nothings do this, they waste their time getting spoon fed with a bunch of theory they never manage to stomach, get a pathetic degree, manage to get a job because the HR departments assume that a CS is the same like all of the other professions so you always need a degree regardless of experience, and perform terribly on the job.

This, versus a programming whiz, who was never born in a rich family, found a old, bad computer
and started to learn to program, spent most of his free time programming and learning whatever he could, enjoying every bit of it, and after 10 years of programming experience, many open-source projects and some closed-source ones, he considers getting a job, he only knows C/C++, but in very great depth because of his experience, many different libraries and OS API's, and whatnot, so he applies for a job, and usually, an HR department notes all of his experience,
but finds out he has no degree, plus he doesn't know a bunch of languages that aren't even connected to the role of his job, and assume that the lack of knowledge of 9000 languages means the applicant is a terrible programmer, I mean, how do they even get the job if they don't even know programming?

Another thing that I noticed in my school/city that many people assume that just because someone knows a programming language, he might also be:

A hacker
A government agent
Knowledge of anything and everything that has to do with computers,
i.e reverse engineering, security, cryptography, hardware engineering, and network administration, and more...
<more silly titles here>

Also, why do people always assume that programmers are nerds who have no life?
what a pathetic stereotype really, just because someone spends most of their free time actually doing something PRODUCTIVE should be praised, because all I see today are kids acting all gangsta', which is kind of sad.

End of rant, apologies if this belongs to the Discussion section, but since it involves programming then I assumed this is the right place.

[cr33pyguy]

I see your views. The best bet is to really emphasise the multiplicity of projects you've done in your CV, and not stick with one language only. Well, we kind of don't have lives, especially giving that you're browsing a forum that consists of geeks and nerds during your free time, and discuss about intelligent things. (NOTE: we do have a life. at least most of us do)

[xornull]

I see your views. The best bet is to really emphasise the multiplicity of projects you've done in your CV, and not stick with one language only. Well, we kind of don't have lives, especially giving that you're browsing a forum that consists of geeks and nerds during your free time, and discuss about intelligent things. (NOTE: we do have a life. at least most of us do)

This is barely about me, only 1/5th of the thread refers to me(self taught).

I personally love building things, love it even more where you can make value out of nothing but a keyboard and a brain.

But from what I hear on programming for companies, there is little room for open-mindness.

[dog87645]

But from what I hear on programming for companies, there is little room for open-mindness.

It really depends. Some companies crush creative thought while others encourage it. Creativity can earn a company a lot of money so the stereotype about corporate america is not entirely true.

[cr33pyguy]

I personally love building things

I know. Same

But from what I hear on programming for companies, there is little room for open-mindness.

Depends on the company as stated above.
This is why working for smaller companies might sometimes be better, sometimes they have more time to listen to your ideas.

[w00t]

Plenty of large companies don't list degrees as needed, and those that do will generally ignore it if you can prove that you know what you're doing at the same level. Being a good programmer for a company isn't all technical. Sure, you've made some cool pieces of software, but have you ever worked with people? Have you ever had to make a professional development plan? Have you ever maintained a project past release?

And your point about not knowing languages just isn't true. It isn't HR writing the job posting, it is other engineers working on the project. If they say you need to know Lua, they probably are doing a scripting interface. It isn't an arbitrary requirement.