FWIW I've been doing this for over a decade and the number of times I've actually had to care about sort algorithms, balancing red black trees, or that other no

FWIW I've been doing this for over a decade and the number of times I've actually had to care about sort algorithms, balancing red black trees, or that other nonsense is basically only in interviews and only occasionally. I say as much when people try to pull that stuff on me now. There's a copy of TAOCP on the shelf for a reason, if I need to know a good algorithm, Mr. Knuth's are certainly better than mine.