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> (...) there is a massive amount of information that you are required to learn that you will almost certainly never need, except possibly for that one moment i
by foofie 3y ago
> (...) there is a massive amount of information that you are required to learn that you will almost certainly never need, except possibly for that one moment in 1000 hours of flying when something happens in the air, (...)
I don't think this logic applies to software development in general and algorithms in particular.
When you need to roll out a b-tree from scratch, just crack open a book and read up. The worst thing it can happen is that somr acceptance test fails and you roll back a change. That is hardly a life-or-death scenario.
The word "soft" in "software" has meaning.
- thruway516 3y agoGp's point is about how there are many things worth learning even if you can't immediately see how they will be useful, and not about urgency or timing. Sure you can pick up a book and learn about b-trees if you have to but you might not even know that a b-tree is what you need in a particular problem if you never learnt it in the first place. Most algorithmic problems in the wild don't present themselves cleanly with a signpost saying 'this is an X algorithm problem'
- andsoitis 3y ago> When you need to roll out a b-tree from scratch, just crack open a book and read up. How would you know you need to use (or implement) a B-Tree in your solution VS some other data structure?