I did mostly ignore the central thesis of your post, which is why I quoted the specific part I was replying to.
You say they count as extraordinary, but by what measure? Reading the origins of those languages, they don't strike me as such. Unless you consider them extraordinary because they wrote languages and compilers without having advanced formal education, but then your claim seems rather circular.
I can't really respond to your anecdata without starting a flame war, but suffice it to say that perhaps some people would consider PHP or Perl or JavaScript cogent counter-examples to the point you're trying to make.
Well, no, because the point I'm making is that one can be employed to hack on some of the most used languages and compilers without having a PhD, and these examples strengthen it.
Now, it might be that these languages are poorly built and which is why many non-PhDs can get jobs building them, but that is an explanation, not a rebuttal.
And I'd point out that one doesn't have to be blind to fail to see statistics that aren't there. Would you care to provide them?
> one can be employed to hack on some of the most used languages and compilers without having a PhD, and these examples strengthen it.
Of course. You can most anything without a degree, with very few exceptions (see: the article).
But the degreed : undegreed and phd : nonphd ratios in language design/compiler implementation are much higher than in software development more generally. The same is true of other technically challenging things. If you agree with that observation, then I think we're violently agreeing or you're reacting to the tone rather than the substance of my post.
> Would you care to provide them?
Anecdata, and bearing in mind that "originator of a language" is a very, very small subset of all people working on compilers / language design (and that even there, I think my observation holds -- especially for degreed : undegreed, and probably even for phd : nonphd). And that compiler/language design is only one very small segment of what a reasonable person would consider to be core infrastructure.
I don't have the time or the interest to run this study. Feel free to do so.
You say they count as extraordinary, but by what measure? Reading the origins of those languages, they don't strike me as such. Unless you consider them extraordinary because they wrote languages and compilers without having advanced formal education, but then your claim seems rather circular.
I can't really respond to your anecdata without starting a flame war, but suffice it to say that perhaps some people would consider PHP or Perl or JavaScript cogent counter-examples to the point you're trying to make.
Well, no, because the point I'm making is that one can be employed to hack on some of the most used languages and compilers without having a PhD, and these examples strengthen it.
Now, it might be that these languages are poorly built and which is why many non-PhDs can get jobs building them, but that is an explanation, not a rebuttal.
And I'd point out that one doesn't have to be blind to fail to see statistics that aren't there. Would you care to provide them?