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I've been a developer for just over 10 years. I have no degree. I've had numerous recruiters after me and numerous job offers. So I'll cast my vote into the "No" column on this one. The degree may help get you that first job, but after that it's all on you, your abilities, and your work ethic.
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I think it depends on whether you and prospective employers consider software development a means or an end. I have several degrees (and about to add one more, hopefully), but none of them are in IT or CS or anything related. My degrees are in engineering. Software development is a means to an end, learned as needed.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Tech has always moved so fast that by the time some institution offers a degree in it, it's obsolete.
I took COBOL in school 
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I agree with the original statement: "Just because you have a college degree doesn’t mean you have learned anything."
Some people with a degree don't even know simple bitwise arithmetic or how a hashtable works. (because their education doesn't teach them)
Some people without a degree can do amazing things. (because they figure out how themselves)
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Heck no.
1. Was a litigation attorney in Texas 30 year ago.
2. Moved to California.
3. Took two extension classes (C programming and the UNIX operating system) at a local university.
4. Took the California bar exam.
5. Took a job programming at a small cross compiler company, wrote the ANSI C runtime library, a RAM disk controller and a command driver.
6. Found out I had passed the bar exam and was qualified to practice law in California.
7. Never looked back.
All you need is some knowledge, a lot of passion, and a knack for it.
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The bachelors degree is a white collar union card*. You can have the skills to do the job without one; but in a lot of places you're not going to be able to get in the door without one. Depending on what/where you want to work this may or may not be an issue.
* Think electricians/plumbers/etc hiring hall, not UAW/UMWA/SEIU/etc.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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John Somnex wrote:
If you have a degree that you worked hard for and paid a large amount of money for, you are more inclined to believe that piece of paper has more value than it really does.
If you don’t have a degree, you are probably more inclined to believe that degrees are worthless and completely unnecessary—even though you may secretly wish you had one.
So, whatever side you fall on, I am going to ask you to momentarily suspend your beliefs—well, biases really—and consider that both views are not exactly correct, that there is a middle-ground somewhere in between the two viewpoints where a degree isn’t necessarily worthless and it isn’t necessarily valuable either.
Hard to believe people get paid to write this kind of stuff. 
/ravi
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I have a PhD in Computer Science and have been a developer for over 35 years. I found in a couple of cases I didn't get a job because I had a PhD and my potential boss didn't - I removed it from my CV along with three years as a teaching Professor and managed finally to get a real job! The PhD itself is so out of date that, from what little of it I remember, it is almost completely obsolete as far as being useful in my current job. Degrees are bits of paper that say what you were able to remember enough about to pass an exam or two - very little of which will remain in your memory or of any use in the real world.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I don't think that all developers need degrees, but I did.
Without my degree, I would have never been able to get the job I have today. My employer has very strict hiring standards. A degree is absolutely required to even be able to apply for my position.
Quote: But, at the same time, I believe you can get by perfectly well without one—you’ll just have a few less opportunities—a few more doors that are closed to you. For a software developer, the most important thing is the ability to write code. If you can demonstrate that ability, most employers will hire you—at least it has been my experience that this is the case.
I agree with the author on this point. There are many places that will hire without a degree, but you will have many more opportunities with one regardless whether or not you view it as just a piece of paper.
Kudos the developers that were able to make it without a degree.
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With the time and expense spent locking down code, most popular programs should be bulletproof -- yet hackers find a way. "Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs"
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Russian leaker says Windows 8.1 Update 2 puts the final nail in the Win8 coffin, and Microsoft is working on activation methods for Windows 9. "New activation methods"? Sideways unhappy face!
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Python is now the most popular introductory language at American colleges, a recent Association for Computing Machinery study reports. "Python is more concerned with making it easy to write good programs than difficult to write bad ones."
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I think I could say that about any language, including VB. Writing bad program is never difficult; I could easily write ten a day in any language. 
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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ReadWrite wrote: Python is now the most popular introductory language at American colleges
But is that even a valid point in the argument about why Python is a "great first programming language"?
Probably not since we understand that, on average, colleges/universities do a horrible job of teaching software development.
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A lot of Visual Studio customers use Visual Studio to do web development. We’d like to know more about your experiences using UI frameworks, so we’ve created an anonymous survey. Let them know what you know
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Microsoft officials are beginning to sound the support warning bell for customers running a number of its popular products, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and more. The End is Nigh! (more or less. less actually)
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If you think ecosystem lock-in is bad now, just wait until the fall. "A thousand people in the street, singing songs and carrying signs; mostly say, hooray for our side"
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Open source has become an industry default, but it's still not for everyone. "How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser?"
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I would not recommend open source.
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Webmasters Pride wrote: I would not recommend open source.
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
I would not recommend closed source, from a security-point. Who knows what code is in there 
You can verify the source-code of "open source" if you're worried about that kinda stuff. That's impossible with properietary software. Being publicly available means also that the code is reviewed by more eyes. Call it transparancy.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Gartner projects Windows XP upgrades will stop the PC market bleeding next year. Queue the "Tablets are dead" news stories
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There will be no revival - all the XP machines are sitting idle and will not need to be replaced.
Gartner are like a fairground fortune teller - they predict 200 contradictory things and then claim special prescience when 5 of those come to pass.
(Also - as I'm on a rant ... "Cue[^]"  )
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote: Gartner are like a fairground fortune teller - they predict 200 contradictory things and then claim special prescience when 5 of those come to pass.
Wisdom and truth. Ah, thanks. I'll fix that.
TTFN - Kent
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Microsoft has recently announced that it is retiring two of its mapping products, MapPoint and Streets and Trips. Both of these services have received their last update and will soon be retired in favor of Microsoft's premier mapping product, Bing Maps. I would have sworn they were already dead
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