You may not need an education to write code. Sure, you can get something to work. I wrote code when I was 5 years old.
Just because I wrote code doesn't mean a thing. Also, just because it worked doesn't mean a thing. The point is that anyone can write code and maybe they can do it bug free.
Let's assume you are targeting one specific type of machine.
What will seperate you from the others is your understanding of the machine you are targeting.
You need to understand many many things about this machine when your code becomes very involved. You will need to understand the cache structure, L1, L2, etc. You need to understand how those caches are designed. You need to know about paging and TLB. You probably wont learn these by 'haacking' code together. Grant it, there are some indivuduals who want to know everything and will go out and learn it all.
Asside from the architecture, you also need to understand applied mathematics which is where Computer Science came from. You need to understand logic and electrical engineering, at least the basics. You should understand how registers work and how bits get added, subtracted, multiplied, divided, etc. This is all very important.
Once you learn all these fundamental things you will see things in code entirely different.
Remember, a high level language is just a syntax for you to apply your knowledge. It really is nothing more. Programmers should be able to switch languages very easily and still know what they are doing.
Let me tell you a short story about my first job after college. I ended up getting hired to a group where maybe half the people there had degrees. There were a few, lead, people who had taught themselves with VB. They asked me to write a script for them. In all their glory they wanted to tell me about this neat system they came up with. Two hours later when they finished I just replied, "You recreated a finite state machine". The two hours they spent explaining themselves to me really was a waste of time. All they really needed to tell me was, "Here is our finite state machine and here is the drawing showing the states. This is what we have implemented. Use this for your script."
Now, in college I wondered why I was being taught about finite state machines and whether I would ever use it. Well, my first job I did. I continue to use my education every day. It is very helpful to figure out what is going on. It isn't just about memorizing things but learning how to think and applying what you know.
Just because I wrote code doesn't mean a thing. Also, just because it worked doesn't mean a thing. The point is that anyone can write code and maybe they can do it bug free.
Let's assume you are targeting one specific type of machine.
What will seperate you from the others is your understanding of the machine you are targeting. You need to understand many many things about this machine when your code becomes very involved. You will need to understand the cache structure, L1, L2, etc. You need to understand how those caches are designed. You need to know about paging and TLB. You probably wont learn these by 'haacking' code together. Grant it, there are some indivuduals who want to know everything and will go out and learn it all.
Asside from the architecture, you also need to understand applied mathematics which is where Computer Science came from. You need to understand logic and electrical engineering, at least the basics. You should understand how registers work and how bits get added, subtracted, multiplied, divided, etc. This is all very important.
Once you learn all these fundamental things you will see things in code entirely different.
Remember, a high level language is just a syntax for you to apply your knowledge. It really is nothing more. Programmers should be able to switch languages very easily and still know what they are doing.
Let me tell you a short story about my first job after college. I ended up getting hired to a group where maybe half the people there had degrees. There were a few, lead, people who had taught themselves with VB. They asked me to write a script for them. In all their glory they wanted to tell me about this neat system they came up with. Two hours later when they finished I just replied, "You recreated a finite state machine". The two hours they spent explaining themselves to me really was a waste of time. All they really needed to tell me was, "Here is our finite state machine and here is the drawing showing the states. This is what we have implemented. Use this for your script."
Now, in college I wondered why I was being taught about finite state machines and whether I would ever use it. Well, my first job I did. I continue to use my education every day. It is very helpful to figure out what is going on. It isn't just about memorizing things but learning how to think and applying what you know.