3 ms·

This is a pattern of discussion I see a lot on HN: "People who believe in X are wrong because A, B, C." "No, X is actually right, because if you know about th

This is a pattern of discussion I see a lot on HN: "People who believe in X are wrong because A, B, C." "No, X is actually right, because if you know about these obscure parts of X-theory which laypersons never hear about, you will see that it addresses A, B and C." Of course, both these comments are right, because in addition to the fact that X-theory does in fullness address those issues, few people know how it does.

Jtsummers 4y ago
This is CS 101 material here, if it's obscure to people in the software industry, that speaks poorly of the industry and who it hires.
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  It's stuff that every CS student encounters but probably relatively few people who are self taught or do coding bootcamps will ever encounter. Also probably a part of a course many people snooze through.
  - ironmagma 4y ago
    People who've only done coding bootcamps probably shouldn't sign on to Hacker News and start preaching about how Big O is wrong.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      Sure, but they still get jobs building software is what I mean.
  - cgriswald 4y ago
    I see it mentioned somewhat frequently by learners on 'learn-to-code' platforms when discussing code. Even when thinking about it wrongly, it can useful.
  - mcguire 4y ago
    I don't know when the original article was published, but Jon Bentley's book Programming Pearls (IIRC) contains essentially this same essay (actually, reversing an array) and was published in 1986.
- tadfisher 4y ago
  Weird, we didn't get into complexity theory until CS 350. Before that we mostly focused on logic, data structures, and languages (with a bit of computing thrown in). This was at Portland State in the late 2000s though.
- sitkack 4y ago
  It isn't CS 101. You are being overly dismissive and even CS people from top schools get this stuff wrong. The courses that introduce big-O are often the weeder courses, they don't aim to education, they aim to flunk out the people that might be hard to teach so that CS departments can gate keep. When you have top CS researchers having to give talks to remind people that layout matters more than instruction selection, the CS as a whole has focused on the wrong things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g1Acy5eGbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g1Acy5eGbE Figure how to build people up, not tear them down.
  - jcranberry 4y ago
    After an introductory programming course, the next course is data structures which will introduce you to Big O.
  - funcDropShadow 4y ago
    > The courses that introduce big-O are often the weeder courses, they don't aim to education, they aim to flunk out the people that might be hard to teach so that CS departments can gate keep. That is an often re-iterated conspiracy theory. In practice nothing could be further from the truth. Professors have nothing to gain from weeding out students. They have to gain by ensuring a certain standard. By the way it is also better for a student to encounter the difficult parts of their subject as early as possible, so that they can decide whether they have chosen their subject wisely. On the other hand, not failing students on fundamentals means complicating advanced subjects even further --- for everybody. At some point in life students have to accept that neither their time in university nor their time in the industry will consist only of externally motivating tiny bites of tasks that are awesome. In order to understand complicated matters, you have to put in the work. Spending hours in the gym is also quite boring, but most people accepts that it is necessary for certain results. I've been involved with undergrad teaching in a University. And the amount of time we spend on finding ways to teach and test better was way more than I could have expected as a student myself. On the other hand I couldn't have imagined the arrogance and sometimes stupidity of first year student claiming to know already what they will need in there career and what not.
albedoa 4y ago
How does "both are right" follow from "few people know why one is wrong"?
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Because by and large, at least in the example, most people who espouse X do neglect A, B and C.

Jtsummers 4y ago

This is CS 101 material here, if it's obscure to people in the software industry, that speaks poorly of the industry and who it hires.

bluefirebrand 4y ago
It's stuff that every CS student encounters but probably relatively few people who are self taught or do coding bootcamps will ever encounter. Also probably a part of a course many people snooze through.
- ironmagma 4y ago
  People who've only done coding bootcamps probably shouldn't sign on to Hacker News and start preaching about how Big O is wrong.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    Sure, but they still get jobs building software is what I mean.
- cgriswald 4y ago
  I see it mentioned somewhat frequently by learners on 'learn-to-code' platforms when discussing code. Even when thinking about it wrongly, it can useful.
- mcguire 4y ago
  I don't know when the original article was published, but Jon Bentley's book Programming Pearls (IIRC) contains essentially this same essay (actually, reversing an array) and was published in 1986.
tadfisher 4y ago
Weird, we didn't get into complexity theory until CS 350. Before that we mostly focused on logic, data structures, and languages (with a bit of computing thrown in). This was at Portland State in the late 2000s though.
sitkack 4y ago
It isn't CS 101. You are being overly dismissive and even CS people from top schools get this stuff wrong. The courses that introduce big-O are often the weeder courses, they don't aim to education, they aim to flunk out the people that might be hard to teach so that CS departments can gate keep. When you have top CS researchers having to give talks to remind people that layout matters more than instruction selection, the CS as a whole has focused on the wrong things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g1Acy5eGbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g1Acy5eGbE Figure how to build people up, not tear them down.
- jcranberry 4y ago
  After an introductory programming course, the next course is data structures which will introduce you to Big O.
- funcDropShadow 4y ago
  > The courses that introduce big-O are often the weeder courses, they don't aim to education, they aim to flunk out the people that might be hard to teach so that CS departments can gate keep. That is an often re-iterated conspiracy theory. In practice nothing could be further from the truth. Professors have nothing to gain from weeding out students. They have to gain by ensuring a certain standard. By the way it is also better for a student to encounter the difficult parts of their subject as early as possible, so that they can decide whether they have chosen their subject wisely. On the other hand, not failing students on fundamentals means complicating advanced subjects even further --- for everybody. At some point in life students have to accept that neither their time in university nor their time in the industry will consist only of externally motivating tiny bites of tasks that are awesome. In order to understand complicated matters, you have to put in the work. Spending hours in the gym is also quite boring, but most people accepts that it is necessary for certain results. I've been involved with undergrad teaching in a University. And the amount of time we spend on finding ways to teach and test better was way more than I could have expected as a student myself. On the other hand I couldn't have imagined the arrogance and sometimes stupidity of first year student claiming to know already what they will need in there career and what not.

albedoa 4y ago

How does "both are right" follow from "few people know why one is wrong"?

whatshisface 4y ago
Because by and large, at least in the example, most people who espouse X do neglect A, B and C.