I started as the typical 13 year old hacker ... about 30 years ago. I had access to some "big iron" back then, and some people were helpful/foolish enough to allow me to use it. Yes, those were the days -- saving your monster 200-line basic game program to paper tape from a 300 (or was it 110?) baud terminal and hoping you could read it back in later; wrangling with the punch card machine; threading reel-to-reel tapes; hand mounting disk packs; grabbing passwords off of printouts carelessly cast into the trash (really).

Now I have a BS and MS in CompSci, so I guess it's both. I think just having one or the other would cause me to have gaps in perspective/knowledge (i.e. I think both are beneficial). So I should have no excuse for not knowing what I'm doing. Of course I still make excuses...