Does anybody know if Notch is self taught? I thought he had a CS Degree from somewhere?I can't say with any degree of authority, but based on what I've read of his code, I'd guess he's self-taught.
My bigoted preconception is that when it comes to abstraction in code, people with CS degrees err on the side of doing too much, creating extremely elaborate object frameworks that close down options as much as they help reuse code. Self-taught folks, on the other hand, err on the side of doing too little, relying on cut and paste, util packages, and promiscuous sharing of data.
When it comes to algorithm design, people with CS degrees tend to pull in libraries of esoteric things, sometimes overengineered for the purpose at hand. Self-taught folks tend to write something from scratch that almost, but not quite, does the job right.
Based on what I've read from decompiled Minecraft, I'd guess Notch is self-taught. The abstraction is just barely enough to get the job done, and the algorithms are decidedly homebrew. That's neither praise nor criticism, just a comment on style.
I can't say with any degree of authority, but based on what I've read of his code, I'd guess he's self-taught.
My bigoted preconception is that when it comes to abstraction in code, people with CS degrees err on the side of doing too much, creating extremely elaborate object frameworks that close down options as much as they help reuse code. Self-taught folks, on the other hand, err on the side of doing too little, relying on cut and paste, util packages, and promiscuous sharing of data.
When it comes to algorithm design, people with CS degrees tend to pull in libraries of esoteric things, sometimes overengineered for the purpose at hand. Self-taught folks tend to write something from scratch that almost, but not quite, does the job right.
Based on what I've read from decompiled Minecraft, I'd guess Notch is self-taught. The abstraction is just barely enough to get the job done, and the algorithms are decidedly homebrew. That's neither praise nor criticism, just a comment on style.