As the old saying goes, theory is nice, in theory, but has problems in practice :)
Leaving aside the scornful sneers at those "web developers" (which read more as envy that "this chump makes more money than me and didn't spend as much as I did on a degree"), there is a strong tendency for people to assume that what they know and can do is special, while what someone else knows and can do will never be up to snuff. And there's a tendency to extend this to group membership. Witness the hate of people with theoretical CS education for people without.
In reality, there are large fields of programming which are well-trod enough at this point, or possess layman-oriented tools of sufficient caliber, that years of systematic formal theoretical CS education simply is not a necessity. Which, to be honest, is a good thing; programming is a useful skill to have in the toolbox, and restricting access to or participation in it by denigrating dabblers or self-taught amateurs is a net harm.
Consider, for example, how many people doing quite successful and worthwhile things today got their start writing BASIC on their home computers a decade or two ago, and then consider how many of them and how many of those successful and worthwhile things we'd have if they'd all listened faithfully to Dijkstra's bile.
It's a glib statement, but it's not coming from a place of envy - more likely cynicism than anything else :) As I said, he has real world experience, he's made his money and continues to do so...
I am both self-taught, and have a CS-type degree. I've walked both sides of the street on this issue, at times I've thought I wasted 4 years at uni, and at others I've been glad I sat through at times dry and disinteresting lectures, when I get to apply that theory in the "real world."
Leaving aside the scornful sneers at those "web developers" (which read more as envy that "this chump makes more money than me and didn't spend as much as I did on a degree"), there is a strong tendency for people to assume that what they know and can do is special, while what someone else knows and can do will never be up to snuff. And there's a tendency to extend this to group membership. Witness the hate of people with theoretical CS education for people without.
In reality, there are large fields of programming which are well-trod enough at this point, or possess layman-oriented tools of sufficient caliber, that years of systematic formal theoretical CS education simply is not a necessity. Which, to be honest, is a good thing; programming is a useful skill to have in the toolbox, and restricting access to or participation in it by denigrating dabblers or self-taught amateurs is a net harm.
Consider, for example, how many people doing quite successful and worthwhile things today got their start writing BASIC on their home computers a decade or two ago, and then consider how many of them and how many of those successful and worthwhile things we'd have if they'd all listened faithfully to Dijkstra's bile.