2 ms·

Actually looking at their "brute force" solution, what I was referring to as brute force was their "greedy" algorithm, and the first optimization I came up with

Actually looking at their "brute force" solution, what I was referring to as brute force was their "greedy" algorithm, and the first optimization I came up with was the most optimal solution. I'd call that a very natural strategy to take -- try doing the words simultaneously instead of separately, and you see it. I don't even see that as DP. Not everybody will be as quick as me, but there are plenty of people that don't spend a month practicing for a Google interview. If somebody is practicing solving data structures problems for the first time in their life, that's fine -- maybe they went to a substandard school. But if they have to spend a month refreshing any time they want a job, it means their brain drops skills they learn that are closely related to the job they do. That means their experience is worthless -- they aren't retaining it, long-term.

LouisSayers 8y ago
If the skills were closely related to your job, then it doesn’t make sense that you’d need to refresh those skills - as you would have been applying them at your job... Sounds like the skills are the useless things, not the work experience.
m0zg 8y ago
That's not the point. I just automatically assumed a subsequence problem will involve DP. I only know this because I studied for interviews in the past, not because I ever had to solve a subsequence problem at work, and I've done some _very_ advanced stuff. I posit that ability to solve such problems is completely irrelevant to one's job performance, at Google or anywhere else. Google's own test of this hypothesis (hiring a control group of people irrespective of their interview scores) seems to bear it out.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  The point is you are claiming that people need to study up a month for a Google interview. My point is that there are many people who do not need to study up for a month, or at all. They walk in, get asked some fun little data structures problems, and solve them. This idea that some people like to push, that these interviews are all about memorization, is a false one.
- webmaven 8y ago
  > Google's own test of this hypothesis (hiring a control group of people irrespective of their interview scores) seems to bear it out. Link?
pathseeker 8y ago
>But if they have to spend a month refreshing any time they want a job, it means their brain drops skills they learn that are closely related to the job they do. That means their experience is worthless -- they aren't retaining it, long-term. DP isn't used the vast majority of the time. That's not retaining "experience".
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  Your experience from 10 years ago isn't used the vast majority of the time either.

LouisSayers 8y ago

If the skills were closely related to your job, then it doesn’t make sense that you’d need to refresh those skills - as you would have been applying them at your job... Sounds like the skills are the useless things, not the work experience.

m0zg 8y ago

That's not the point. I just automatically assumed a subsequence problem will involve DP. I only know this because I studied for interviews in the past, not because I ever had to solve a subsequence problem at work, and I've done some _very_ advanced stuff. I posit that ability to solve such problems is completely irrelevant to one's job performance, at Google or anywhere else. Google's own test of this hypothesis (hiring a control group of people irrespective of their interview scores) seems to bear it out.

SamReidHughes 8y ago
The point is you are claiming that people need to study up a month for a Google interview. My point is that there are many people who do not need to study up for a month, or at all. They walk in, get asked some fun little data structures problems, and solve them. This idea that some people like to push, that these interviews are all about memorization, is a false one.
webmaven 8y ago
> Google's own test of this hypothesis (hiring a control group of people irrespective of their interview scores) seems to bear it out. Link?

pathseeker 8y ago

>But if they have to spend a month refreshing any time they want a job, it means their brain drops skills they learn that are closely related to the job they do. That means their experience is worthless -- they aren't retaining it, long-term. DP isn't used the vast majority of the time. That's not retaining "experience".

SamReidHughes 8y ago
Your experience from 10 years ago isn't used the vast majority of the time either.