from Hacker News

Ask HN: Which school produces the best programmers or software engineers?

by curious16 on 9/20/23, 7:18 AM with 3 comments

This may well be entirely anecdotal because I don't think there is any official data to this somewhat ambiguous question.

But based on your experience, if you have worked with quite a few number of programmers and engineers from a few schools, which school tends to produce the most well rounded programmers/engineers (as much as a school can train someone out of the box)?

  • by philprx on 9/20/23, 7:22 AM

    School of self learning with open source.

    Sorry if it's half a joke, because of course it's not a school per se, but that's the best source for me of great programmers I've seen in my 30+ years dev hiring experience (usually as CTO).

  • by westurner on 9/20/23, 8:33 AM

    Which programs offer Formal Methods and TLA+?

    Define a relative metric for comparison

    Programmer's Competency Matrix: https://cuamckuu.github.io/index.html

    Coding Interview University: https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university

    Coding Guidelines: https://awesome-safety-critical.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#co...

    Predict software quality and/or career success

    Predict applied ML/AI failure due to insufficient Data Science fundamentals

    By well-rounded do you mean the ACM Computer Science Curriculum; or a strong liberal arts program which emphasizes critical thinking and effective communication; or Emotional Intelligence, Servant Leadership, and Project Management?

    InfoSec; Computer Security > Careers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_security#Careers

    The NIST NICE Framework describes Categories (7), Specialty Areas (33), Work Roles (52) and Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities which are in demand in cybersecurity: https://niccs.cisa.gov/workforce-development/nice-framework

    You and/or a good program can help you find projects and jobs where you can learn and demonstrate application of KSA's (before you present a certificate for your first job and finally begin your career in lifelong learning). A good program teaches you how to learn; study skills, personal people skills, computer skills.

    Is managing a team of engineers engineering, and will they still let me do engineering if I do management (which none of us have taken a course in)?

    Which programs have QIS Quantum Information Science in their cirricula as more than a paragraph and a quiz question?

    DevSecOps > DevSecOps, shifting security left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps

  • by theGeatZhopa on 9/20/23, 7:45 AM

    You mean, the school of life?

    Forget it. Very hard to attend to. Also, if you did screw up once - they will never forget.

    I tried 2nd life - even several times after beating it. But it's the same gurky murky as real Life is