I am self-taught, but I also made a University degree later on.
I never touched a book or a video. I always used the online docs and some kind of project to learn by example. I always wanted to become better, so I started looking up best-practices and patterns. That's how I learned everything
Although I have an university degree, I was pretty much self-taught on web development and also learning the old good AS3, which made it easier to change to javascript.
Well I don't have exactly an university degree but something similar. But after i finished my studies i amb learning every day new things :)
Joe Clark
Full-stack developer specializing in healthcare IT
I am self-taught completely. I started when I was 15. I'm 44 now. To me, programming is an art form. The computer is my canvas. Over the years, I've hired both self-taught and developers with a degree. By far, self-taught ones perform better. I don't know why. Maybe it's because there's a certain passion that self-taught people have. One of my standard interview questions is: what hobby projects have you created? Those with degrees often don't think of programming as a hobby, so don't even bother with it outside of work. Self-taught people do. I think that's the difference.