What IlyaShpitser is saying, I think, is counter-intuitive, seemingly irrational, but generally true: if you make every decision based on $$$ concerns, you lose perspective, a willingness to take risks, the desire to perform creative exploration, and incentive to learn the fundamentals which enable the above. This will make you a mediocre programmer with only moderate $$$ potential, whereas if you focused instead on really becoming a master of your art, $$$ can follow in large quantities.
Here I am just talking about myself in OP’s situation, not about OP. Obviously OP may have different priorities. $$$/effort is not very good in technical fields in general. Given that one wants $$$ and be a techie, I imagine there is some sort of tradeoff involved where one wants “interesting work (given a techie predilection)” but also make a decent living. Given this, the best bet seems to me to just become technically good at what one does (which would involve studying that pesky underlying computer science). Why even bother with a technical field for $$$ otherwise if you are in the kind of percentile that can study quantum physics?
That rather depends. You certainly don’t need comp sci background to write ten pages of spaghetti in VB for Excel. But if the OP wants to actually be a good programmer, a foundation of comp sci will help.
Yes, but the OP is concerned with
which has little to do with comp sci.
Strongly disagree w/ this. $$$ creates vast distortions and crappy norms.
One needs to understand what one is doing.
But $$$ are the very reason the OP is considering programming in the first place, otherwise they’d presumably stick to physics.
What IlyaShpitser is saying, I think, is counter-intuitive, seemingly irrational, but generally true: if you make every decision based on $$$ concerns, you lose perspective, a willingness to take risks, the desire to perform creative exploration, and incentive to learn the fundamentals which enable the above. This will make you a mediocre programmer with only moderate $$$ potential, whereas if you focused instead on really becoming a master of your art, $$$ can follow in large quantities.
What is one trying to do?
Here I am just talking about myself in OP’s situation, not about OP. Obviously OP may have different priorities. $$$/effort is not very good in technical fields in general. Given that one wants $$$ and be a techie, I imagine there is some sort of tradeoff involved where one wants “interesting work (given a techie predilection)” but also make a decent living. Given this, the best bet seems to me to just become technically good at what one does (which would involve studying that pesky underlying computer science). Why even bother with a technical field for $$$ otherwise if you are in the kind of percentile that can study quantum physics?
That rather depends. You certainly don’t need comp sci background to write ten pages of spaghetti in VB for Excel. But if the OP wants to actually be a good programmer, a foundation of comp sci will help.