As a self-taught programmer who started in the '80s, I definitely missed a lot of foundation I had to pick up over the years. However, this was mostly on the architectural level. As far as the more technical stuff is concerned, I was lucky enough to start with C at a time where we still had to code a lot of stuff by hand which is now taken for granted.
But realistically, this knowledge is rarely needed in most modern day application-level programming. Many decent developers can not only get by, but produce great applications without it. It's mostly a matter of the right skills for the right job. And as always, just getting stuff done is the #1 skill.
Comments
As a self-taught programmer who started in the '80s, I definitely missed a lot of foundation I had to pick up over the years. However, this was mostly on the architectural level. As far as the more technical stuff is concerned, I was lucky enough to start with C at a time where we still had to code a lot of stuff by hand which is now taken for granted.
But realistically, this knowledge is rarely needed in most modern day application-level programming. Many decent developers can not only get by, but produce great applications without it. It's mostly a matter of the right skills for the right job. And as always, just getting stuff done is the #1 skill.