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>there's some code out there that is a work of art and can inspire awe in everyone. and the people who wrote it didn't spend thousands of hours memorizing the

>there's some code out there that is a work of art and can inspire awe in everyone. and the people who wrote it didn't spend thousands of hours memorizing the same stupid leetcode exercises to pass lame interviews for 6 figures job, they worked on real projects tell me the fast inverse square root from Carmack would have been praised in an interview...

chowells 4y ago
Perhaps if you spent more time with books, you'd know that John Carmack didn't invent the fast inverse square root algorithm associated with his name.
- FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
  I found out about this after writing this comment, didn't bother to edit it(because what's the point?) Who cares if it's carmack or buddha? it's still brilliant code written by creative people, who can do stuff beyond memory copy/pasting code from other people
- closewith 4y ago
  Would that improve the products the GP worked on?
- thefz 4y ago
  Ironically Carmack is just one of those technical minded people who also has been hella creative... Fo 30 years
RobRivera 4y ago
bless his comment in code for a magic number in >Q3 engine< I think? // don't change this number, not sure why it works... not an exact quote but something like that
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Love that, I have also written a pretty much identical comment in the past lol
kristopolous 4y ago
Disagree with the thousands of hours. The tasks are actually pretty easy and take about maybe 5 hours for any competent coder to brush up on. But that's the problem. If a few hours of exercise can dramatically change someone's results then it's not an acid test and it speaks poorly to the quality of whatever team the candidate would be joining. All interviews are two way streets and the problem is everyone knows what kind of results pass through the leet code filter and so if it's a bad process, perhaps your best candidates will decline to proceed or accept. You want people whose time is more valuable than your money. That's kinda the whole point of employee/employer social arrangements.
welshwelsh 4y ago
Leetcode isn't an alternative to real world projects, it's an alternative to textbooks and lectures for beginners. Zuckerberg was able to build Facebook because he got a good education and understood graph theory enough to apply it to social networks. In the past, the only people who really understood concepts like graphs were people who endured rigorous four-year computer science curriculums. And only top students at elite schools would learn this. The average CS graduate has a very poor understanding of fundamental data structures and algorithms. But with Leetcode, anyone can solve 5-10 graph problems and obtain the same knowledge. It's extremely efficient. In a couple of days, you can learn what used to take years.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > understood graph theory enough to apply it to social networks. Facebook accounts have a friends list. Why would you need to understand graph theory.
- twobitshifter 4y ago
  Zuckerburg stole the idea of the product and knew php. I don’t think he needed graph theory to build it and his education was really only Exeter at that point.

chowells 4y ago

Perhaps if you spent more time with books, you'd know that John Carmack didn't invent the fast inverse square root algorithm associated with his name.

FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
I found out about this after writing this comment, didn't bother to edit it(because what's the point?) Who cares if it's carmack or buddha? it's still brilliant code written by creative people, who can do stuff beyond memory copy/pasting code from other people
closewith 4y ago
Would that improve the products the GP worked on?
thefz 4y ago
Ironically Carmack is just one of those technical minded people who also has been hella creative... Fo 30 years

RobRivera 4y ago

bless his comment in code for a magic number in >Q3 engine< I think? // don't change this number, not sure why it works... not an exact quote but something like that

tomduncalf 4y ago
Love that, I have also written a pretty much identical comment in the past lol

kristopolous 4y ago

Disagree with the thousands of hours. The tasks are actually pretty easy and take about maybe 5 hours for any competent coder to brush up on. But that's the problem. If a few hours of exercise can dramatically change someone's results then it's not an acid test and it speaks poorly to the quality of whatever team the candidate would be joining. All interviews are two way streets and the problem is everyone knows what kind of results pass through the leet code filter and so if it's a bad process, perhaps your best candidates will decline to proceed or accept. You want people whose time is more valuable than your money. That's kinda the whole point of employee/employer social arrangements.

welshwelsh 4y ago

Leetcode isn't an alternative to real world projects, it's an alternative to textbooks and lectures for beginners. Zuckerberg was able to build Facebook because he got a good education and understood graph theory enough to apply it to social networks. In the past, the only people who really understood concepts like graphs were people who endured rigorous four-year computer science curriculums. And only top students at elite schools would learn this. The average CS graduate has a very poor understanding of fundamental data structures and algorithms. But with Leetcode, anyone can solve 5-10 graph problems and obtain the same knowledge. It's extremely efficient. In a couple of days, you can learn what used to take years.

rightbyte 4y ago
> understood graph theory enough to apply it to social networks. Facebook accounts have a friends list. Why would you need to understand graph theory.
twobitshifter 4y ago
Zuckerburg stole the idea of the product and knew php. I don’t think he needed graph theory to build it and his education was really only Exeter at that point.