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C++ is an extreme example, but almost all students learn it or similarly unpleasantly complicated stuff like Java. > many programmers don’t even have a firm gr
by wyager 5y ago
C++ is an extreme example, but almost all students learn it or similarly unpleasantly complicated stuff like Java.
> many programmers don’t even have a firm grasp on recursion
I can’t say I ran into more than a few people like this and I don’t think any of them stayed in CS.
- shepherdjerred 5y agoI think anecdotes about other programmers that we (people who use Hacker News) know is a rather biased subset of all programmers. Most of of the programmers on this site are likely above average in terms of skill. There are plenty of programmers out there that learned at boot camps, universities with poor CS programs, or who are self-taught, who likely have a much less solid understanding of CS fundamentals. Many of those programmers have never needed to understand recursion. I went to a school with a very average CS program, and many of my peers struggled with recursion. There were more than a few who passed the class (Data Structures) and graduated alongside me despite not fully grasping the concept of recursion.
- wyager 5y ago> There are plenty of programmers out there that learned at boot camps Some of the best (functional) programmers I know learned (functional programming and programming in general) at boot camps. I think the predictor for FP proficiency is not education (and I hesitate to share my predicted predictors here). In any case, they certainly understand recursion.