> I get the impression that Morgan Phillips avoids saying she has a background in CS due to not holding a degree in it. I think she has every right to state that she does have a background
That seems a bit semantic to me. She's basically saying "I never studied or worked extensively with X, so I have knowledge gaps about Y [which is tightly related to X, and often comes by studying X]".
As another researcher who is also sans-degree, I can see where she's coming from. To someone outside the field I would never split hairs about whether or not I have a formal CS background, whereas I might when speaking with a colleague or a professional peer.
> That seems a bit semantic to me. She's basically saying "I never studied or worked extensively with X, so I have knowledge gaps about Y [which is tightly related to X, and often comes by studying X]".
You can apply that to professionals in certain scenarios. Referring to my original quote: “Every time I'd come across some concept, some data structure in the kernel, I'd have to go educate myself on it.” The only difference between someone who has a formal CS background and someone who doesn't, is that the former is given a lot of guidance by one of the most sophisticated data processors on Earth - the human brain, the latter has to bootstrap their knowledge.
You didn't mention your area of research, I would be interested in knowing.
That seems a bit semantic to me. She's basically saying "I never studied or worked extensively with X, so I have knowledge gaps about Y [which is tightly related to X, and often comes by studying X]".
As another researcher who is also sans-degree, I can see where she's coming from. To someone outside the field I would never split hairs about whether or not I have a formal CS background, whereas I might when speaking with a colleague or a professional peer.