>I'm not talking about a maths or physics degree specifically. I'm talking about having a CS degree or not.
Well then why did you say this:
>There isn't anything unusual about professional programmers having a degree in maths or physics rather than CS. At least in my experience it was pretty close to an equal split.
You said explicitly math and physics degrees vs CS degrees. And you previously said the best programmers tended to have math, or physics degrees or something similar.
This isn't me being pedantic, it was the entire context of the discussion.
The point is that you are prone to confirmation bias as evidenced by your belief that it's close to an equal split. Your mental model is overrepresenting people with physics and math degrees likely because it confirms your belief that they are better programmers.
>So a typical 15-developer team would be 9 with CS degrees, 3 with no degree, 1 with an engineering degree, 1 with maths/science and 1 other. The non-CS folk are not exactly rare unicorns.
That's not the point, it's that you are more likely to remember the background of the 1 person on a team who has a Math degree because she is relatively rare compared to all of the people with CS degrees. This is a well known and well documented phenomenon. And it's one of the primary reasons that anecdotal evidence, even a large amount of anecdotal evidence is so often wrong.
> You said explicitly math and physics degrees vs CS degrees.
I was giving those as examples of degrees that are normal and don't stand out. We don't think there's anything particularly odd about a programmer with a maths or physics degree. That's all I was saying.
> you previously said the best programmers tended to have math, or physics degrees or something similar.
A category which would include engineering, at which point we're at 20-25% of professional programmers with degrees by your numbers (which I still think are significantly biased).
> The point is that you are prone to confirmation bias as evidenced by your belief that it's close to an equal split. Your mental model is overrepresenting people with physics and math degrees likely because it confirms your belief that they are better programmers.
My mental model is that it's an equal split between CS degrees and not, and per your own sources that's accurate. You're fixating on a couple of specific examples of non-CS degrees that I mentioned when that's completely beside the point.
I'm not fixating on anything. This entire chain started as a reply to a post you made where you switched to math over CS, and specifically to this statement.
>The best programmers I've worked with have mostly not had CS degrees (tended to have degrees in maths, physics, or that sort of area).
That's the entire context of the discussion. The assertion that CS majors have worse outcomes (with respect to programming ability) than math, physics or similar majors.
>A category which would include engineering, at which point we're at 20-25% of professional programmers with degrees by your numbers (which I still think are significantly biased).
If you are including math, all natural sciences, and all other engineering degrees you get 17%, not 20-25%.
>My mental model is that it's an equal split between CS degrees and not, and per your own sources that's accurate. You're fixating on a couple of specific examples of non-CS degrees that I mentioned when that's completely beside the point.
There is no other logical way to parse this statement
>There isn't anything unusual about professional programmers having a degree in maths or physics rather than CS. At least in my experience it was pretty close to an equal split.
than that you were talking specifically about math and physics.
I get it, you don't like that there are numbers that contradict you, so you are grasping at straws trying to find alternate interpretations to reconcile your statement with the numbers. You obviously don't like being wrong. I don't either, that's fine, but no one other than us is reading this far down. There's not point denying you farted when there's only 2 of you in an elevator.
Well then why did you say this:
>There isn't anything unusual about professional programmers having a degree in maths or physics rather than CS. At least in my experience it was pretty close to an equal split.
You said explicitly math and physics degrees vs CS degrees. And you previously said the best programmers tended to have math, or physics degrees or something similar.
This isn't me being pedantic, it was the entire context of the discussion.
The point is that you are prone to confirmation bias as evidenced by your belief that it's close to an equal split. Your mental model is overrepresenting people with physics and math degrees likely because it confirms your belief that they are better programmers.
>So a typical 15-developer team would be 9 with CS degrees, 3 with no degree, 1 with an engineering degree, 1 with maths/science and 1 other. The non-CS folk are not exactly rare unicorns.
That's not the point, it's that you are more likely to remember the background of the 1 person on a team who has a Math degree because she is relatively rare compared to all of the people with CS degrees. This is a well known and well documented phenomenon. And it's one of the primary reasons that anecdotal evidence, even a large amount of anecdotal evidence is so often wrong.