Repost: Code Quality

xkcd had a great comic today about the code quality of self-taught programmers.  While there are technically trained programmers that write poor quality code, my impression is that this is more common with self-taught programmers as well as programmers who are only taught programming itself.  Basically as part of the technical training, someone learns more than just programming.  They learn about CS theory, data structures, multiple programming languages, and are more often exposed to well written / designed programs.  Learning to program at a high quality is similar to learning a natural language, in that you study grammar and spelling, you read great works of literature and analyze them, and you practice reading / writing / speaking.

Each month I understand better what it takes to be competent in my field and also respect more the idea that curriculum is established by experts for a purpose, whether or not I may like certain topics.