I thought about it, and I think I found the reason it makes me sad: an uncooperative attitude.
Yeah, the article is pretty scattered and whimsical, so I may be deciphering it wrong, but it is my guess that part of the author's disdain for CS degrees and most of his concern about making others rich rest on a lack of appreciation for division of labour.
Yes, there are still opportunities where one person can have an idea (shit or not) and make money by implementing it.
However, much more potent and myriad are opportunities requiring multiple collaborators each with their own domain of knowledge. Bioinformatics wouldn't get off the ground without a computer scientist and a biologist. Yes, as the article points out, the bioligist might just learn to code because it's hard to get a computer scientist to work with you. (This is the story of how tools like R and Mathematica came to be: statisticians and physicists dissatisfied with their computational tools set out to build their own.) But author is endorsing this problem!
As for the autodidact elitism and the importance of CS degrees, the article misses out on the fact that the ability to 1) study philosophy 2) learn to code and 3) make money with some cool idea, relies on computer scientists studying the deepest depths of computing to make step 2 possible. And like it or not, advancements in specialized CS areas mostly happen in academia thanks to people with CS degrees.
"College almost makes me sick, but I attend because it gets me out of my apartment."
I think that the author of the article should work on his interpersonal skills a little bit. It makes life more interesting, and leads to better prospects.
The whole piece gave me the impression of a rather isolated person.
Yeah, the article is pretty scattered and whimsical, so I may be deciphering it wrong, but it is my guess that part of the author's disdain for CS degrees and most of his concern about making others rich rest on a lack of appreciation for division of labour.
Yes, there are still opportunities where one person can have an idea (shit or not) and make money by implementing it.
However, much more potent and myriad are opportunities requiring multiple collaborators each with their own domain of knowledge. Bioinformatics wouldn't get off the ground without a computer scientist and a biologist. Yes, as the article points out, the bioligist might just learn to code because it's hard to get a computer scientist to work with you. (This is the story of how tools like R and Mathematica came to be: statisticians and physicists dissatisfied with their computational tools set out to build their own.) But author is endorsing this problem!
As for the autodidact elitism and the importance of CS degrees, the article misses out on the fact that the ability to 1) study philosophy 2) learn to code and 3) make money with some cool idea, relies on computer scientists studying the deepest depths of computing to make step 2 possible. And like it or not, advancements in specialized CS areas mostly happen in academia thanks to people with CS degrees.