Only if you believe qualifications are a reflection of how good someone is.
Thought experiment: You meet two software developers who each have 10 years experience of C++. One has a CompSci degree. Does that in any way help you decide which is the better developer?
> Does that in any way help you decide which is the better developer?
No, but it has time and again proven that it tells you which is the better engineer. Not necessarily having a CompSci degree, but someone who's made it to senior year or even postgrad is, in my limited experience, an infinitely better engineer than someone who dropped out in freshman year or never attempted.
No, CompSci will not teach you how to code. But it sure does a hell of a lot in teaching you how to design systems and engineer solutions. Of course you also need experience on top of that, but it helps a lot.
Like, things that are completely obvious to somebody with a CompSci degree, might be wholly out of the range of somebody who is self-taught.
But as always, the question is: Is that something you need? Everyone can build you a CRUD app for sharing cat pics. Even a 15 year old high school student who codes on the side can do that. But who are you gonna call when your CRUD app needs to handle a million cat photos a day? Yup, someone with a CompSci degree.
source: being both that 15 year old high school kid and a CompSci person.
No. I'd call the person who's done something similar before regardless of their qualifications. Experience is far more valuable. That's the point I was making - two people with 10 years experience are at the the same level regardless of their respective qualifications, because they'll both have seen the problems and pitfalls firsthand (at least, you'd hope so).
Possibly the CompSci graduate will have dealt with them better the first few times they encountered problems (which is why a degree can be useful), but after that it's down to the relative merits of the individual and how interested they are.
I tend to disagree slightly. I have a math/cs degree, but work with a lot of physicists turned programmers. They are all smart and have plenty of experience at doing what they are doing, but have no idea what is out there CS wise. They reinvent the wheel quite often when building large systems. By not having the time taken out to read real cs text and instead focusing on just getting things done they missed a lot of sound computer science. They are all very bright, but just doing the relevant work only helps you on that type of work. Being exposed to a ton of different areas (as might happen in a cs degree, but there are other ways of course), lets you know what is out there in terms of different approaches.
They both have 10 years of development experience, but the one with the CS degree has 4 (give or take) years of additional experience in another setting (as an undergrad). It's not the same kind of experience, but it gives you a bit more more information about that person.
All other things equal (which they rarely are), I'd value 10 years dev experience + 4 years undergrad over 10 years dev experience + ?.
The game is not to pick the 'best' developer and employers don't have that ability. Employers pick the person likely to be most competent and then fire those that turn out not to be. A CS degree in this regard is light years ahead of some schmoe off the street who claims he/she is "the shit".
Thought experiment: You meet two software developers who each have 10 years experience of C++. One has a CompSci degree. Does that in any way help you decide which is the better developer?