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> A self taught person doesn't even know that these things exist unless they also have an excellent mentor at the beginning of their career in the industry. I

> A self taught person doesn't even know that these things exist unless they also have an excellent mentor at the beginning of their career in the industry. I was perfectly aware of them as a 15-year-old teenager decades ago. Think of your own situation -- did you learn what you know about JITs by taking formal classes?

bonzini 3y ago
And how often do you hear people complaining that "interviewers only care about useless stuff like complexity" and "why wouldn't you be able to look up complexities if you really need them" (which only shows that you don't understand why complexity matters)? The reality is that these are arcane topics for 99% of the programmers out there and even more of the self taught ones. > did you learn what you know about JITs by taking formal classes? No, but JITs or emulators are not fundamental topics. One example I can give is this: solid knowledge of data structures, together with some theoretical 20-years-old knowledge of query plans and normalization, meant I could understand a database's EXPLAIN output and quickly learn materialized subqueries and denormalization the first time I needed them. Even obsolete knowledge has a core that is still valid, and experience is also about being able to recall it and apply it. If you have done some CS at school, you will be faster at this because you have more dormant concepts that you can recall.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  > And how often do you hear people complaining that "interviewers only care about useless stuff like complexity" and "why wouldn't you be able to look up complexities if you really need them" (which only shows that you don't understand why complexity matters)? Now how the fuck do you complain about something if you’ve never even heard of and “don’t know exists”. No one who’s never heard of algorithmic complexity or invariants aren’t going to complain about them because, perhaps to your amazement, they simply have no idea these things exist. But maybe that concept is a bit too complex for you.
  - bonzini 3y ago
    I don't know about you, but I have read both of those assertions way too many times, typically from people that have failed a job interview or from "influencers" ranting about how big O questions are gatekeeping Stack Exchange, Quora, Reddit are all full of pages like https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/20832/is-big-o-really-that-relevant-when-working-in-industry https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2083... (sometimes with a mocking tone).
    - the_only_law 3y ago
      Yes, I agree. I’ve seen these types of assertions quite a bit myself. However, for someone to write that question, they have to have known that Big-O exists. If they didn’t even know it existed, you wouldn’t see questions like this. Are you being disingenuous, or can you simply not read? The initial assertion was: > A self taught person doesn't even know that these things exist Not “a self taught person doesn’t understand these things”, not “a self taught person doesn’t appreciate the usefulness or application of these things”, or whatever else you’re trying to argue.
      - bonzini 3y ago
        Ok, just add "usually" after "a self taught person".

bonzini 3y ago

And how often do you hear people complaining that "interviewers only care about useless stuff like complexity" and "why wouldn't you be able to look up complexities if you really need them" (which only shows that you don't understand why complexity matters)? The reality is that these are arcane topics for 99% of the programmers out there and even more of the self taught ones. > did you learn what you know about JITs by taking formal classes? No, but JITs or emulators are not fundamental topics. One example I can give is this: solid knowledge of data structures, together with some theoretical 20-years-old knowledge of query plans and normalization, meant I could understand a database's EXPLAIN output and quickly learn materialized subqueries and denormalization the first time I needed them. Even obsolete knowledge has a core that is still valid, and experience is also about being able to recall it and apply it. If you have done some CS at school, you will be faster at this because you have more dormant concepts that you can recall.

the_only_law 3y ago
> And how often do you hear people complaining that "interviewers only care about useless stuff like complexity" and "why wouldn't you be able to look up complexities if you really need them" (which only shows that you don't understand why complexity matters)? Now how the fuck do you complain about something if you’ve never even heard of and “don’t know exists”. No one who’s never heard of algorithmic complexity or invariants aren’t going to complain about them because, perhaps to your amazement, they simply have no idea these things exist. But maybe that concept is a bit too complex for you.
- bonzini 3y ago
  I don't know about you, but I have read both of those assertions way too many times, typically from people that have failed a job interview or from "influencers" ranting about how big O questions are gatekeeping Stack Exchange, Quora, Reddit are all full of pages like https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/20832/is-big-o-really-that-relevant-when-working-in-industry https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2083... (sometimes with a mocking tone).
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    Yes, I agree. I’ve seen these types of assertions quite a bit myself. However, for someone to write that question, they have to have known that Big-O exists. If they didn’t even know it existed, you wouldn’t see questions like this. Are you being disingenuous, or can you simply not read? The initial assertion was: > A self taught person doesn't even know that these things exist Not “a self taught person doesn’t understand these things”, not “a self taught person doesn’t appreciate the usefulness or application of these things”, or whatever else you’re trying to argue.
    - bonzini 3y ago
      Ok, just add "usually" after "a self taught person".