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People complain a lot about basic CS assignments in interviews. Just thinking out loud: it's an important skill to be able to put together libraries and existin
by klum 10y ago
People complain a lot about basic CS assignments in interviews. Just thinking out loud: it's an important skill to be able to put together libraries and existing code to get a working product. But a lot of software is crap, and I think often one of the contributing factors is a lack of knowledge about data structures, design patterns, algorithms... in other words, the stuff that a CS education might actually teach you about. You can't look something up if you don't know enough to look for it (and to understand the answer) in the first place. So the "irrelevant" basic CS problem interview questions might be a way to check not only if you can build a product, but if you can do it well?
- manyxcxi 10y agoI think the irrelevant CS problems are an okay test to see someone's style and thought process where they shouldn't be too worried about solving the problem (they should have at least a meager basis of understanding to begin with) and can spend time cleaning up, and preparing their thoughts for presentation. I think this is fine as one of multiple measures. I graduated from CS, and the only reason I knew anything at all about how to handle multi-tier architecture is because I was employed previous to my graduation. How do you keep configuration from being a mess? Hard coded values all over the place, etc. CS courses give you the theory needed for getting started down a path of understanding, but it does not make you understand, nor does it actually prepare you for the real world. Data structures are one thing, micro services, unit testing, configuration management, dependency injection, and persistent storage are beasts all unto themselves.