I didn’t study computer science at school or university, and still manage to work as a programmer.
That is not to say that I don’t need to know some things that are taught on computer science courses. Just this week I’ve had to build a couple of different data structures and understand their running time: very CS.
I’ve also needed to know things that aren’t on a CS degree, too. The acceptance criteria for one of my projects are written in French, and none of the CS courses I’ve seen in UK universities include that in the syllabus.
I’m neither arguing for nor against the validity of a CS background in professional software development. I’m arguing against taking either side. You need to know some CS things to write software, you need to know some other things, multiple backgrounds are appropriate and welcome.
