2 ms·

1. The number of people at Amazon who need to be able to write a b+ tree is negligible. 2. The number of people at Amazon who need to be able to choose a searc

by gdulli 10y ago

1. The number of people at Amazon who need to be able to write a b+ tree is negligible. 2. The number of people at Amazon who need to be able to choose a search/sort/etc. algorithm or data structure and understand why one is more appropriate than another for a given use case is much higher. 3. The number of people at Amazon who need to demonstrate common sense is very high. This skill is much more closely related to #2 than #1.

burntrelish1273 10y ago
Yup, it's BS in-lieu of real problems. CS fundamentals are nice to know, but how often does one implement something custom like BigTable/Colossus from scratch vs. buy/use OTS? The support/scalability/technical debt/unforeseen costs of implementing something entirely new is typically much greater than using adequate "lego" that already exist. Judgement of cost/benefit DIY vs. OTS can be gained (hopefully) without too much wasted effort, time, money, morale & business life-expectancy.