Ken,

>What's interesting is this, and I'll probably get bashed for it, (and I don't claim to be completely non-biased) but by in large it's people WITHOUT degrees, who have done it own their own that I've found to be the best programmers, the best workers, and have the best feel for 'real world business problems'. Maybe it's just that of all the programmers I've ever met that were absolutly awful, not-a-clue, couldn't stick their floppy disk in their ear with both hands .... they all had degrees!

Sometimes you could have this impression.. I've seen cases where people with degrees had a kind a additude of "i'm a better programmer because i've got a degree". Of course this stinks. But on the other hand when I look to myself I'm convinced I wouldn't be the programmer I am now without the education. I've spend a whole lot of time to construct my own framework based on theories i've learned from the education. Much of my knowledge of Information Systems comes from the theory I could only have learned with the education of a degree.

When I first did go to university, I had the additude of "Hey, you can't learn me to program better than I do now.". I really had the impression I was a pretty good programmer. Well, that additude vanished within two months ...

The point I'm trying to make is that everyone is convinced of his own capabilities, no matter what someone else is saying. Only after you have learned some new technologies or did experience this in the hard way, you will admit that you've had overvalued yourself.

I've had the same trouble here to convince some MVPs here that the DELETED() tag isn't helpfull in most cases. Trying to convince some people who have lot's more experience than you have (and maybe have an additude of "I know everything about FOX") that they are wrong is very difficult and painfull.

Saying that you won't need a degree to be a real good programmer is IMHO way too easy. Sadly the only way to confirm this is to get the degree and draw your own conclusions.

Walter,