I started programming sprite and 3D demos in DirectDraw/Direct3D at age 11. I wrote a microkernel for a hobby in high school.
I'm in grad-school now, and I still don't feel like a "hacker" or a "real computer scientist", because I don't eat and drink RFCs, crypto specs, deep-learning algorithms, and every web technology under the sun. And because I'd much rather spend my time at an anime convention than A/B testing a new website feature or cross-validating a recommendation algorithm.
Plenty of very competent professionals are merely very good at what we do and not actually married to the job.
I started programming sprite and 3D demos in DirectDraw/Direct3D at age 11. I wrote a microkernel for a hobby in high school.
I'm in grad-school now, and I still don't feel like a "hacker" or a "real computer scientist", because I don't eat and drink RFCs, crypto specs, deep-learning algorithms, and every web technology under the sun. And because I'd much rather spend my time at an anime convention than A/B testing a new website feature or cross-validating a recommendation algorithm.
Plenty of very competent professionals are merely very good at what we do and not actually married to the job.