Contrary to popular belief, after having been in the working world I've realized that what matters and what is of value is book knowledge, not experience.

I find 'experience' an overglorified waste of time. Having in-depth knowledge of everything is what's important.

When you say you have been in the Working World, you mean it is your 1st or 2nd working day?

It seems that you don't know what experience means.

Theory is nothing without practice.

Theoretical knowledge means you have just read the book and never tried anything in reality.

Experience is when you apply theoretical knowledge in reality and find out what happens really.

That's why experience is as important as theoretical knowledge.

But experience doesn't need theoretical knowledge.

When you've burned yourself on a hot stove as a child, you gained the experience that this hurts like mother fucking hell without ever having read about it........

Only having theoretical knowledge, you're truly a bird in a cage.

You seemingly know everything without ever having experienced it.

Or to stick the finger in the wound: You _claim_ to know things that you _think_ are true - a thesis without proof is just a thesis, nothing more.

It's important to gain experience.

Simply because it changes your perspective and makes you aware of your own abilities and limitations.

I'm legit uncertain if you mean this, or if you're joking...

I'd hire someone with experience over someone with theoretical knowledge any day. If the guys has years of experience I can introduce him to new concepts and he'll be able to read and understand them quickly, because he knows ins and outs of similar technologies...

if you hire someone booksmart all he has is a theoretical "this is how it *should* work... but then it doesn't and he's lost"

like, getting someone booksmart to be your system admin would be a catastrophic decision

Dude, the rant tag is for rants, not jokes or memes!

@asgs 2+ years

@Hazarth I find the opposite to be true. Having experience just means you've dealt with some things but you don't really know things in-depth like someone with theoretical knowledge does.

As someone with theoretical knowledge, I've continuously outsmarted anyone in any company when it came to disaster scenarios - even guys with 20 years experience, to even system administrators with 40 years experience! Why? Because I know the specs and ins and outs of things in-depth. Theory prepares you to have the fundamentals to be flexible - experience is simply winging it.

@Oktokolo You can't seem to handle opinions different from the status quo.

@IntrusionCM Not really, no. I know what I'm talking about.

@CaptainRant

I've seen so far one guy that was booksmart (new employee, still in uni at that point) in our company and he was generally known to be almost godlike programmer because of his fast and working output... It wasn't until he left and I had a look at his code (he was on a different project, so I didn't do reviews for him) that I found out his code was really rigid... it was technically correct but when bugs started popping up eventually (he already left the company at that point) and I was tasked to help on the project I found out that a lot of it had to be rewrote because of how rigid the solutions were, he simply lacked the experience with larger projects and continuous development. he engineered a solution that fit the task he was given, but not the big picture. So I don't really have a good experience with what is considered booksmart...

on the other I also had my fair share of experience with people who don't even know how hashmaps work sooo.. also not good...

@CaptainRant

I mean the ideal programmer doesn't exist, but from my personal experience, if I'm looking at two programmer of the same age but one has top grades at uni but doesn't have any code behind his name, and the other dropped out but has a github full of projects...

I would personally go with the guy with the code... after reviewing it ofc. if there's a lot of code but it's full of mistakes, holes and naive approaches then I'd go for the top grade guy...

but rather than education, I feel (again, just my experience and opinion) that good programmers are easily identifiable with how much they enjoy the subject... chances are that if someone enjoys programming a lot, he spent a lot of time on making at least small projects, and he's going to continue enjoy learning at a rapid pace, because it's fun for him, as opposed to someone who's really good at remembering information, but is indifferent to the subject

@CaptainRant Alright. As you might have guessed, I wasn't really asking about it

The way world works is, you learn the basics and understand something and then you practise it. That's how one improves their self and the iteration keeps happening. And that's how Book Authors evolved and wrote solid books

One can't simply start reading and gain the knowledge that is all there is to know and then type it out while working. Of course, you need to learn and understand the fundamentals but experience is what that makes everything meaningful and complete

@CaptainRant I think you're partially right...

Except that you make it a bit more black n white then I'd like.

Especially flexibility isn't what most book smart people have.

I guess it comes down to the field of expertise...

A lot of knowledge e.g. in standards like HTTP needs to be taken with not only a grain of salt, but better a teaspoon full of it... As a lot of implementations are "quirky" or have knobs to pervert the behaviour into anything the admin likes.

Experience is less about winging it, but rather having an instinct where something is wrong and the knowledge to hunt this shit down.

There might be people who can have a broad full fledged knowledge of many specialties who also can keep it up to date and adapt it... But I've rarely met one.

E.g. I'm currently looking at HTTP 2 vs HTTP 3 vs HTTP 1 and I really feel like my head is getting blown apart because remembering the specifics is important but it's frigging hard.

When you are really so good (no bad intention)... Be glad. :)

But this is a gift, not something everyone can do.

@IntrusionCM Yeah.. I've noticed this. Oh and I love HTTP. : )

@CaptainRant I like HTTP, too :)

Just trying to get several servers and a reverse proxy and SSL termination working together with several versions is... Infuriating. XD

@IntrusionCM Yes, I have been through that at my other job. It was a nightmare.