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 + ?.
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.