when one, who wants to build his mobile suit RX-78 secretly in the darkness of his garage, is not skilled enough (just to use an euphemism) to be aware about the effort behind the hood, and he doesn't believe in universities, because he believes that in no place is as good as the internet where "you can study Python in the morning, modern art after breakfast and quantum mechanics at night".
Skills are
learned. The question is, can you learn enough
from the Internet to get the programming skills you need. I say yes!
in the digital land of internet, people starting topics claiming to be able to write complex things from the scratch and without the need to have a good university background.
This is a completely different issue. People who make such claims either need to show the proof (working code) or shut up.
he really wants to write an operating system (like unix) in assembly for RISC machines ... including his own assembler and his own C compiler
Good for him! Perhaps he will find that it is a little harder than he thought. OTOH, with enough time and effort anything is possible.
(he believes that RISC like MIPS are a piece of cake like with 90s CISC, e.g. Z80),
We all agree that Z80 is a piece of cake. Is MIPS really that different? I say no!
My first computer was a CDP1802 kit. This was back in 1979 when there was
no Internet to get information from, and the the only programming documentation I had was a photocopy of the CPU datasheet with an opcode listing. Yet I was able to figure it out, even though I had no formal electronics or computer training whatsoever. That 1802 kit
was my computer training course. I then used that computer as the cross-development platform for another computer that I designed and built from scratch - including the operating system.
I wonder why isn't he going to wire up hundred thousand transistors, or why isn't he going to cook and dope the sand onto integrated circuits, in order to build a CPU from the scratch, just to add more points to his intellectual challenge
Perhaps he just isn't interested in going down to that level. But if he did, what would be wrong with that? Plenty of people have successfully built computers out of individual transistors, and a few have even made their own semiconductors. When I was learning electronics I made my own capacitors and resistors. It may not be productive, but learning this low level stuff gives you an understanding that you don't get by just using commercial parts.
Is it funny, ain't it ? Even if the annoying part of this story is the idea he has of universities and graduates, basically he believes we are all morons as he considers himself able to learn better by himself without the need to be in contact with qualified teachers
Perhaps he is just dreaming, or perhaps he is a genius who
can learn without being in contact with qualified teachers. I did, even though I only have an IQ of 120. A true genius should have no trouble learning by themselves.
Apart my dry sarcasm, in my opinion, concerning computer science, with all the respect, everyone is able to fill in code, few have the ability to design, and none of them has learnt from internet: that is the importance of the university path
I didn't go to university so I obviously don't know how to design anything, and I of course I never learnt
anything from the Internet.
So, the linear path of the learning process should be end to end with the university: subscribe to a campus of your choice, have your duties, do your homework, pass your examinations, get your bachelor degree in computer science, subscribe to the next step and have laboratories, have your duties, do your homework, pass your examinations, get your master's degree in computer science
And come out knowing nothing but what that university taught you? No thanks. Going to university may improve your work ethic, but it isn't the only way to gain knowledge and skill.
Instead of going to university I became an electronics technician, because I wanted to learn
practical skills in the workplace. I was showing engineers where their designs had gone wrong while I was still a trainee!
At the end of this line, you will be ready and able to deal with the complexity under the hood of things like "operating systems", "compilers", "filesystems", etc …
What do you think about, guys?
I think it's nonsense. There is more than enough information on the Internet about operating systems, compilers, filesystems etc. for anyone with a bit of intelligence and drive to learn it without going to university. If that had been available when I started out it would have accelerated my skills enormously.
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