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Great post & I really get what you mean.
I am self-taught also & it seems, over the 33 years of my IT career that I've always been on the outside.
However, I've also noticed that a lot of this is simply related to Ego.
Let me explain a bit.
I do not have any college degree, but I've read more books than any of the college grads I know.
Oh, I understand that reading books doesn't teach you everything -- but it helps a lot and I've read so many that I now have a broader view of what people really know versus what is just BS spewed into a book (or into the air during a meeting). (I think you have that understanding too.)
I know some people (am dealing with them right now) who absolutely believe that whatever they do is THE EXACT CORRECT WAY TO DO SOMETHING! I never feel that way. There are so many ways to do something and there is sometimes one or two ways which it is done best.
But, there is rarely only one PERFECT way to do something. These other people's Egos are so HUGE that they are just like, "well I did it that way and that's why it's right".
But, for me, it's different. I am interested in various ways to accomplish something & why one might be better than others.
It's kind of the old saying, "The more I've learned, the more I learn that I have a whole lot more to learn." But, those other people, not so much.
And, those people are not always complete asses. Not always. But often they are.
You find them a lot in IT so you & I have to deal with them a lot.
Debug In Your Head
Let me give you one from a place I left a long time ago.
Me: "What debugger do you use to debug the JavaScript in the application?"
Ego-Dev: "Debug? I just debug in my head. I just figure it out."
Now, the Ego-Dev was the Creator of that app and it was a complete Bus Transit system and it written back in 2002 (not much web tech for doing great apps then) and he was probably a literal genius in that code.
But, do you see how stupid that idea of "debuggging in my head" is?
It's the equivalent of saying "Oh, I don't use a hammer. I just bang the nails into boards with my fist." Tools make things easier.
Genius Screamed Down My Neck
But that guy was considered a genius at that company and he is still there.
He actually came into my office one day and literally and completely stood over me and screamed down into my face one day. I thought he was going to punch me for real. I remember thinking "if the blows start raining down, I'm just going to take them and I'm going to be rich!"
After he ranted, I said, very quietly, "Why is this upsetting you so bad?"
He slouched into himself and said, "I don't know."
That was the day I decided I would leave that company and I did.
I have no degree.
I started out selling computers in a computer shop. 1 year.
I moved to another company & started tech support $9/hr for 2 years.
Worked my way into QA. I broke the $hit out of dev's code.
If the dev bothered me, I would wreck their software.
When I Crashed Entire Oracle Installation
One time in QA at a very large company, back in '98, I injected HTML into the web app, brought down the entire Oracle installation. Dev said, "What do you want me to do with that bug. no one's going to do that."
I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Oh, you can do whatever you want with it." I was thinking, "shove it where the sun don't shine. And good luck with your weekend, because you have a critical bug." 
My Chance (To Get Thrown Under the Bus)
I got a chance to do some development at the same company and I was being guided by a Senior Dev.
He kept saying, "We'll get together on that feature and work out how to do the code."
I was workging away on it and examining the requirement and getting ready.
He wouldn't take time for me. I said, "Hey, there is a critical issue about why that won't work."
He shook his head. "I'll get with you, it'll be easy."
Finally 3 days before the work was to be complete we had a meeting.
I showed him that the library I was building on (his library) did not support the critical piece of functionality.
I'll never forget him pulling the keyboard from me and saying, "Yes, it is here. It has to be."
Then his awareness that serious (more than 3 days work) would have to be done on his part because we are going to miss the dead-line.
He said, "I have to check on some things."
Next day at the huge dev status meeting (50 other people there who are my peeers).
Boss asks about the functionality that I was supposed to complete.
The Senior Dev breaks in..."Uh, Roger discovered that he won't be able to complete that in time for the release because he didn't get started in time."
The f*ck he just said?? He threw me under the bus. I had other friends in QA that I couldn't even explain it to, because the Senior Dev had so much cred.
My boss never gave me another chance to try to get into Development.
I finally left to another place for a dev job.
Anyways, I've never had an official banner waved over me to tell me, "You are a dev," and I run into stuff all the time that doesn't make sense. People _STILL_ try to tell me, "Oh, I think you're doing that wrong." Ok...whatever.
Most of the time it is because they have never actually tried it and don't know that it doesn't actually work that way.
My Take-Aways
1. Self-learning (if continuous) Is far better than Academia & degrees.
2. IT is full of Genius A**holes who are ready to tell you what Genius they are and why their code or idea is better than yours.
3. I just keep on learning and trying and try to do cool stuff -- even though it may be "wrong".
4. A lot of stuff in the IT world "acts like it is right" but is actually not quite right or is completely wrong.
5. The IT Publishing industry has screwed up a lot - they write long books which often just build up into a dung pile of ideas (bec they want long books to charge you $79.99 for), from which you have to pick out the little pieces which are helpful.
6. Do things your way and learn.
7. The prevalence of human @ssholes is much greater in IT. They're found about 1 in 4 in the normal world, but about 3 in 4 in IT work. Dear Reader, do you feel the need to respond to this? You're probably one of those IT @ssholes.
modified 29 mins ago.
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I've got a bit of a "not invented here syndrome" (other people's work often just doesn't cut it) and so I created my own time registration and invoicing software for use at my company.
Usual story, it started out as Excel, migrated to a database, then a simple .NET Core application born from hopes and dreams of which I've realized maybe a third.
So this application works really well for me and my coworkers, but it has some quirks and lots of stuff I don't use or haven't finished...
Decided to fix them, then decided to completely modernize it, then decided to cut the fluff, then decided to add features I was really missing...
And a business partner of mine has been nagging me to let him use it for years now so I'm making it multi-tenant (he's my best salesman, bringing in two of my best clients, and I don't even pay him, so I guess I owe him one).
Haven't had so much fun programming in years!
I've been programming instead of gaming, so that's really saying something! 
And then when all was good and well my girlfriend suddenly broke up with me this week (we weren't in a fight or anything, but she just lost her romantic feelings for me and thought of me more as a good friend) 
It's only been three days, and usually I wouldn't even have seen her in that time either, but I'm already missing her and somehow the house feels empty even though she was around only about half of the time.
Well, sh*t happens and I've been through breakups before so I'll probably survive this one as well.
At least I've found a sort of new purpose in my software and I'm not bored 
Oh yeah, and I've been losing weight (after gaining 10 kg in about a year time! ) and this morning I was "suddenly" 1.5 kg lighter (after watching my eating and hiking and biking for weeks, mind you)
I've already lost about 5 kg in as many weeks (really going for it)!
I guess with my girlfriend breaking up I've even lost 65 kg (quote Ross from Friends: "ah, humor based on my pain, ah, ha, ha") 
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We have lived a parallel life up to the point where your girlfriend left.
I found myself in a sole proprietor retail given quickbooks desktop and a laser printer with the un-spoken words of ok, get after it.
Oh, hell no and got to writing my own POS webapp to support daily life in the little shop.
It also grew the same way as yours, going multi-tenant along the way etc.
Best of blessing going forward bro. 
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Ron Anders wrote: Oh, hell no and got to writing my own POS webapp to support daily life in the little shop.
1,000%. If you're a small business, reinventing the wheel while getting started is lacking focus at beast and a waste of resources at worst.
Jeremy Falcon
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Sander Rossel wrote: I created my own time registration and invoicing software for use at my company
I learned Classic ASP over 23 years ago writing a little customer lookup utility. Over the years, it grew to handle other stuff like billing, customer portal, bug tracking/reporting, and customer contacts (remotes/issues/offline work, etc.) That's the nice thing about 'rolling your own'.
Sorry to hear about your breakup. ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
BTW, did you ever get those Azure DNS issues worked out from last week?
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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Sander Rossel wrote: I've got a bit of a "not invented here syndrome" (other people's work often just doesn't cut it) and so I created my own time registration and invoicing software for use at my company.
You sure that's the best use of your time for a small business, man? QBO will handle both of these and just about any CPA can work with QBO exports. Remember, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you always should.
Sander Rossel wrote: I've been programming instead of gaming, so that's really saying something!
Noice
Sander Rossel wrote: And then when all was good and well my girlfriend suddenly broke up with me this week (we weren't in a fight or anything, but she just lost her romantic feelings for me and thought of me more as a good friend)
Sorry to hear that buddy. Not sure if you wanna hear my thoughts on the matter or just need to let it out. So, I'll shut up and just say sorry to hear that.
Sander Rossel wrote: I guess with my girlfriend breaking up I've even lost 65 kg
Niiiice. I'm in a similar boat. Let myself get way out of shape. You're human. At least you're fixing it man.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 4hrs 20mins ago.
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This is what the Boeing CEO has said in the Senate hearing. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun faces grilling at Senate hearing - YouTube [^]
Having a non-engineer as the CEO of a life-critical high-tech engineering company; with that CEO having senior engineers advising him on technical matters - seems to be sub-optimal, isn't it? What value can such a CEO add in say, a design review meeting? What engineering judgement can he have?
IMHO, it should be the other way around - the CEO of such an engineering company should be an engineer, with senior business people advising him/her on stock market and other business matters.
What say you?
modified 16hrs ago.
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I say "Yay". However were not both NASA Shuttle disasters the result of decisions by trained engineers.
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Agree.
However one point. NASA missions are kindof exploratory/research type of missions, and not as commercial as passenger aviation.
Research has its own risks/rewards, and not always guaranteed of success.
Whereas this is time tested, more than a century old aviation industry, where they are expected to (at least) maintain status quo, as regards passenger safety.
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Businesses aren't about the products - they are about the units. A CEO markets units, he doesn't really care what they are units of.
Sadly, the accountants are in charge of most businesses, and they know "the cost of everything and the value of nothing" (the late, great pTerry).
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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All accountants know is how to cut costs and so boost the next quaterly dividend and consequently their bonus. Their thinking is very short term. They don't appreciate what such short term thinking is doing to the company in the long term.
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
modified 5hrs 20mins ago.
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If the CEO was such a great engineer the role of CEO would be wasted on him.
Instead, it's his job to be grilled at Senate hearings when his senior engineers and advisers mess up.
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In comparison, Pichai also faces Senate meetings. Though a Metallurgical Engineer by training, he has worked extensively on software, for which he is accountable. He has a strong engineering background.
Calhoun, on the other hand, I'm not sure whether he's worked on stress/fatigue/fracture/impact/dynamics kind of computations, which are so very critical in aerospace.
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You are spot on!
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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The problem with dev/engineer types is they think they know everything, when in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. They generally suck at dealing with people, are immature, lack social skills. I could go on. This is not to say, non devs/engineers are inherently any better at this. It's to say that qualification alone does not a good CEO make.
The fact is, there's more than one type of intelligence. Denying that is no different than being a child who refuses to grow up and see the world while mentally living in their mom's basement. Denying that is no different than spending your entire life behind a computer thinking you're God, etc. because there's nobody else in your "world" to say otherwise.
Now, can an engineer make a good CEO? Sure. But a good CEO (or anyone) cannot know everything in the world. They need to be big picture people who can see trends, patterns, etc. that few can. The vast, vast majority of engineers are just the opposite - they focus on the minute details. Anyone can learn to be better at anything, but if spending 20+ years on CP has taught me anything is that very few people go outside their comfort zone and a lot of devs/engineers have lousy social skills.
Point is, only an engineer with zero life experience will think an engineer makes the best CEOs based on that qualification alone. If this sounds harsh, it's because you're thinking like an engineer and can't handle the truth. And senior business people tend to be more operations than big picture people. A good CEO brings people together, is a big picture person, has a vision with an idea of how the future will unfold. Operations would be more of a COO if anything for a company that size.
And yes, there are outliers. This is clearly a generalization.
This is not to say, non devs/engineers are intrinsically more mature. There are plenty of immature people in the world in various degrees. I'm just focusing on that group because we're on CP.
And no, this does not mean I think the Boeing CEO is good at their job.
And this doesn't mean a CEO should be ignorant of tech, the product, etc. They should have an understanding, but not necessarily on the same level as an engineer getting their hands dirty daily.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 7hrs ago.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: A good CEO brings people together, is a big picture person, has a vision with an idea of how the future will unfold.
While I agree with all you said in your post, let me point out that good CEOs, by your definition, are relatively few. A lot of them are more in the "can my part of the pie get bigger?" category (see recent news about >50bn$ pay package).
My biggest gripe is with the "diode effect" of CEO compensation packages. If company reaches certain performance metrics they get a certain amount of $$. However if company performance falls short, they don't bring any money from home; they just don't get those bonuses. This is very visible when it is some kind of economic shock and CEOs scour the basement to clean the company's books because, hey, it's not their fault, there were just bad economic conditions. They will not get bonuses but next year everything will be rosy and they'll bring home lots of mullah.
It's like telling investors: "We win together, you loose by yourself".
And yes, I know I'm oversimplifying the issue.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: While I agree with all you said in your post, let me point out that good CEOs, by your definition, are relatively few. A lot of them are more in the "can my part of the pie get bigger?" category (see recent news about >50bn$ pay package).
1,000% agree with that, buddy.
Mircea Neacsu wrote: This is very visible when it is some kind of economic shock and CEOs scour the basement to clean the company's books because, hey, it's not their fault, there were just bad economic conditions.
Unfortunately, true genius is in short supply regardless of the role we choose in life. And well, people can be weak/corrupt regardless of role too.
For the genius bit and completely unrelated side note, a lot of businessy types talk about leaving behind a legacy (it's all ego driven). But, the more they think that way the more its obvious they can't see past 100-200 years tops. Unless you're Jesus or Genghis Khan, ain't nobody gonna remember you or your company in 1,000 years. Just illustrating the point, not all executives are geniuses.
Jeremy Falcon
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Boeings best years were under the leadership of a lawyer.
The previous CEO was Dennis Mullenburg, who was an engineer, and lasted less than 5 years.
While I agree someone more trained as an engineer should be the head of the company, that doesn't mean it should be an engineer. CEOs are the interface between the market and the company.
The bad CEOs face most of their attention on the market and little on what the company is doing to make sure the products are what the market wants and are of quality. They try to run the market, not the company. This is what Dave Calhoun did.
The good CEOs listen to the market, not try to run it, and spend their time on the products and issues within the company. They understand if you put out crap products that don't meet the needs of the market, you're going to lose the company. Calhoun failed to understand this.
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"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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I learned a mouthful today id est "micromechanical polaritons in topologically nontrivial hyperbolic metasurfaces". Maybe it's a good pick-up line or discussed at the next cocktail party. Try saying that 3x fast w/ a mouth full of Cheetos.
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Reminds me of "Analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidian metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold".
I have friends in mathematics who claims that it actually makes sense. And then, Tom Lehrer lectured math at MIT; he should know 
For those who do not get the references: Tom Lehrer: Lobachevsky[^]
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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