KernelTrap has interviewed kernel hacker and guru Jordan Hubbard, one of the creators of FreeBSD and currently a manager of Apple’s Darwin project. With just a high school education, Jordan has offered some impressive contributions to the world of computing. In this interview, Jordan talks about his current involvement with Darwin, as well as his past efforts with FreeBSD and 386BSD. He also reflects on his recent decision to step down from the core FreeBSD team.
Interview With Jordan Hubbard at KernelTrap
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
…College is worthless. All of us great ones have only a High Skuul edukation.
I went to (a basic, almost free) college for two years (“computer programming and analysis”) in 1993, but didn’t learn anything more than the basics there. Our teachers knew how to use Word and Excel well, but when it was coming to Pascal and C/C++, they had trouble themselves…
I had to learn a lot by myself at a real working environment.
The only teachers who knew their stuff, where our Unix & 4GL db teacher, our DBase/Clipper teacher and our “network theory” one. The rest did not know more than what was written in the teaching book.
But they gave me a good headstart, so I can’t complain too much…
When it comes to hacking the work you’ve done in class doesn’t mean anything (unless it’s a lab that makes you write *a lot* of code).
If you take a random sample of computer science students from the top 10 universities in the world, most of them will be mediocre programmers, perhaps worse. The ones who are competent programmers will tell you that they either learned coding before they went to college, or that they did a lot of coding for fun, for their thesis, or for research projects they participated in.
Of course, there are lots of useful things you learn in class (math, physics, design principles, biology, foreign languages, humanities) that most people wouldn’t bother with outside school.
I almost dropped out due to material being far below the level I was interested in, but I am very glad I didn’t cut out. If I had, I would never have had the job opportunities I had. Some of the best IC engineers I know are artists, getting their work authorisation is always a hassle but they will usually far out produce most recent graduates. But those people come from a different generation when schools still tought advanced calculas in high school & even latin.
If I had to interview anybody who dropped out or never even went to University, I would have to work several times harder to get them in, & so would they. Anybody who drops school is telling me they are impatient (or not as good as they claim). Besides, U of xxx is still a great thing to do if you can just take it for the personal growth.
If I had to pick between equal candidates, one with degree & one without, I & most managers are going to pick the graduate, atleast they proved they know their material & can follow some rules.
Anyway, every knows you don’t get taken seriously till you have worked in real world for a few yrs, after a few yrs even a Phd is reduced to a few yrs equiv extra exp.
Anybody who drops school is telling me they are impatient or they couldn’t afford the time wasting or didn’t had the money to stay on it. (It happens to some of us).
If I had to pick between equal candidates, one with degree & one without, I & most managers are going to pick the graduate, … well my friend you will never be a good manager than.
In computer tasks (and in programing) originalitty and independence (inventiveness – this english word exists?) are much more important (from my very little experience) most of my collegues on University didn’t had it for sure, they just could memorize formulas to a pre-given, most frequent, problem.
Most of the learned subjects don’t apply on real life afterwards.
I agree most managers prefer the person with a diploma and will give him the job but some didn’t had the chance of wasting money and 5 years in University growing up but they do the job better, go figure it out. Guess you have to like (have passion) for something to do it good.
I am probably in the wrong board but my SW & HW interests bring me here way toooo often. My exp is in the EE Asics field where things are a whole lot more academically formal. I am sure if I had gone the SW side, I would see alot more people with varying backgrounds & qualifications. If I remember rightly, most of my CS class mates of 20+yrs ago (UK) were in fact pretty lousy (but better grades than mine), with a very few obvious talents amonst them. I have no idea what became of them, but I doubt very many are in SW development today. Being in the UK back then didn’t help either in terms of salary & blatant age prejudice.
>>Anybody who drops school is telling me they are impatient
>>they couldn’t afford the time wasting or didn’t had the >>money to stay on it. (It happens to some of us).
This is certainly true esp in countries (US) where you don’t get full grants (unless you can kick a ball hehe).
>>to pick the graduate, … well my friend you will never be >>a good manager than.
Well thanks, I hope never to be a manager too, but in the HW side, the case of the missing degree is quite rare, & most EEs are hired by other EEs so managers just approve the selections. And passion for the work is usually a requirement in my book.
>>Guess you have to like (have passion) for something to do it good.
Of course!!
(unless you can kick a ball hehe).
I can do that too. 🙂
(Next time use italics)
I agree with JJ.. If I have two candidates, one who has finished college and one who hasn’t, all other things being equal, I’m going to hire the one who completed college. I’m more likely to hire them even if there degree isn’t computer related.
In computer tasks (and in programing) originalitty and independence (inventiveness – this english word exists?) are much more important (from my very little experience) most of my collegues on University didn’t had it for sure, they just could memorize formulas to a pre-given, most frequent, problem.
No offense, but maybe this has more to do with your colleagues or with that University than it does with college educations in general.
Adam
All these comments above fall into discussion about geekness vs. education – what’s better for IT professional?
In my view, the question itself is incorrect.
It assumes that getting degree will diminish your creativity, formal education will box your brains etc.
Eugenia’s example (2 years of crappy college) can be counterparted by her husband’s education.
I’ve seen a good hacker – he was high school drop-out. He was making really fast animations in low-level coding and he was struggling with problem how to get distance between pixels given particular x and y coordinates. I guess he dropped high school before they studied Pythagore theorem.
Jordan Hubbard example worked at the beginning of computing – when things were fun. It doesn’t apply to modern computer industry.
On the other side, there is such thing as computer science and the stuff that turns all geeks on (microkernel, distributed computing, clustering etc.) was developed in colleges.
…like working in a team enviorment, communications etc. All this can , although it might take a longer time, be learned in the real world by trial and error. Nothing teaches better than a few kicks in the teeth. I give very little credit to who go to “great” colleges because their family is able to affor/buy them selfes in. I think for this reason alone through out history the most respected men (people) have been the “self made” ones. Nothing like learning by experiance – trying something new, failing at it, learning from your mistakes, and comming back and conquering it.
> Eugenia’s example (2 years of crappy college) can be counterparted by her husband’s education.
I am with JBQ for two years now. But even before that, I had a life too you know.
I was already the head developer of a business ISP in UK by year 1999. In fact, my “profession” is web developer. When I was studying in the college, there was no available internet, neither was ASP or PHP or Java to study. So, I had to learn everything by myself when Internet became “big” in 1996-7, as everyone else did back then. I could say that I owe a lot to Ed, the first boss I had in UK – he taught me a lot as well.
I did not know JBQ back then, and even today, JBQ comes to me to ask about HTML or other internet-dev related stuff anyway.
JBQ has studied in the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, which is the best “Grandes Ecole” in France (these institutes above universities). Only the brilliant people get in that Ecole. He studied engineering and he is indeed a briliant engineer.
France Surrenders.
I always wondered why so many people become engineers, especially considering there aren’t that many trains being used anymore
The term “engineer” has a different meaning in France than the rest of the world.
I find it rather amusing that so many of the “just because I didn’t go to college, don’t stereotype me as being lazy” crowd are more than happy to stereotype college people as uncreative, memorizing drones. The truth is that there are brilliant, creative people both in and out of college. Although, honestly, I think if CS theory is your cup of tea (rather than coding/hacking), you’re better off in academia, where a lot of those people are found.
It’s all in the percentages.
So if you don’t have a BS of some sort, the world is’nt so fare.
Well if you do have a BS, there is somebody else with an MS.
Well if you do have a MS, there is somebody else with an Phd.
Even if you have the right degree, did you go to the “Right” school. In UK I used to see that shit all the time (like I didn’t go to Oxford, Cambridge, or Warwick), luckily I don’t see that kind of BS in the US. But yet I do look at resumes too see what school they went to, as long as I heard of it..
Then for lots of jobs you need US citizenship, good way to keep the smart foreigners out of low paying US gov work.
We all got our glass ceilings.
Funny thing is, till recently you had to be one of the old boys with a Phd in pyhsics from the 60’s to be Pres of most every major electronics corp you ever heard of.
But with HP, thats changed, now you can be a money grubbying wall street insider with 0 knowledge of the biz you are destroying.
Guess I prefer the old way.
Amen to that (Phd…old boy club…60…liking old way better). Atleast they had a clue about what they were doing. Enter that no talent assclown douche bag what’s her face at HP. Comes in, whrecks everything…. Stupid bitch.
There is more to college that simply learning a trade.
Yes. Yes there is. Places that teach you only a trade are call <drum roll> Trade Schools!!!
Thank you!
Thank you very much!
I’ll be at Zanies this Friday AND Saturday nights!
No offense, but maybe this has more to do with your colleagues or with that University than it does with college educations in general
OK I’m not ofended 🙂
(It’s just a conversation) …
but, for my experience, I learned to wait for college people to present a solution before I talk.
They almost never never give the (sometimes obvious) solution but they prefer to give a “brute force” one.
I don’t claim I’m better than they are.
I couldn’t work on hardware innovation and you really need engeneering certification forn that.
I don’t do applications either. Excluding Java.
That’s what I saw with my own eyes (and hours of reunions) from college persons.
As long as the work (or end result) get better it will be OK.
We all got our glass ceilings for sure. We are all human.
What does engineer in France mean?
In french, it is to be ingenious, nuff said
In most of rest of the world it follows the same meaning
In UK, it is to be a scumbag. Well I never admitted to being an engineer there due to the fact that the railway engineers & other bolshe trade unionists always called themseleves xxx engineer when in fact they should have been called technicians or something else. Generally they were always on strike, fucking up the economy as best they could no wonder engineer is not highly regarded there.
So my father is a civil scumbag.. thanks! (he isn’t that ingenious..)
A real engineer is some one that designs, architects, or refines things, could be civil, aero, chemical, nuclear, software, electrical, electronic, space etc. Always professional & degreed, often licensed, can not strike, and relatively few in number!
Railway engineer as in the guy that drives the choochoo, or the guys that fixes cable, phone, & power lines are not engineers but got that title through accident of history or their labor union. In the US they have other titles.
The public view of the (UK) engineer is more often of the latter, that the BBC just announced are on strike hence the low public opinion of engineers. Of course real engineers are not scumbags.
“Engineer” in France is a legal title. Like “doctor” is in US.
I think I read it somewhere on Internet that MCSE title is illegal in Texas, because to be an Engineer there you have to be certified by other authority than Miscrosoft.