"For example let's have this old interview question: find a loop in a linked list with O(1) memory. Here the used language does not matter. I feel the same with

"For example let's have this old interview question: find a loop in a linked list with O(1) memory. Here the used language does not matter. I feel the same with almost all algorithms." Sure, it doesn't matter, as long as you don't actually write the code. When you write the code, the language then matters a great deal. I conjecture that the signal/noise ratio for such an algorithm would be much lower in Java than in Lisp.