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But is that a skill that is required for lots of positions?
by ss2003 6y ago
But is that a skill that is required for lots of positions?
- imbusy111 6y agoIf you are slapping together web templates with a Python back-end, then maybe not, but if you are automating industrial processes, build tools to improve data handling or work on any technical computational stuff, then absolutely yes. I expect someone to be able to reason abstractly. There are still plenty of jobs that require excellent technical skills.
- letstryagain2 6y agoI learned recursive programming decades ago in high school. (Solve the Towers of Babylon with recursive algo). So, yes. Somebody calling himself a programmer or engineer should be able to produce this.
- andi999 6y agoTo me this seems similiar to if you want to call yourself a physician, you need to be able to speak latin. Its true (at least need to pass an exam), but it is only signaling, and no just having a few latin derived labels.
- letstryagain2 6y agoI am not a programmer. But a guy not being able to program a simple recursive function? Really? In a programming language of his or her choice?
- nullsense 6y agoSomeone calling themselves a programmer or engineer really only needs to be able to take the requirements they're asked to implement by their employer and implement them in an agreeable timeframe. No more, no less. Doing so will get you paid for the activity of programming. Along the way if you don't know anything, because you can't know or remember everything, you just look it up. The end.
- ido 6y agoRecursion is a fundemntal part of programming, beyond the self-taught junior yes I would absolutely expect every programmer to be able to do it. You learn it in highschool level programming classes & first semester intro to CS college courses. Even if they won't specifically need to use recursion in their next job it marks them as someone not serious or about programming.
- charlesu 6y agoI'd argue that not being able to program in C marks someone as not serious about programming, but that's mostly because I know and like C.
- ido 6y agoI didn't say it was the only criteria, just that it is one.
- charlesu 6y agoMy point is that these criteria are largely meaningless. It all depends on what you're working on. In some jobs, you'll occasionally need to write a recursive function. In others, it's probably a benefit if you can't.
- ido 6y agoI never personally used it in an interview (that's generally not how I do interviewing) but for someone experienced having not heard of recursion (and it's not such a complicated subject, you wouldn't need much "experience using recursion" to be able to understand it) would mean they haven't really dug into the art & craft of programming. Just like I'd expect a moderately senior developer to be able to program in procedural, object oriented & functional styles even if they strongly prefer one to the others (and how would they know if they haven't tried all of them?).
- andi999 6y agoHonestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linear structure. I mean, I would be worried if a candidate is not shy to use recursion that this will blow up software perfomance. (But then probably after hire the senior will tell: dont use recursion here)