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I feel like schools have gotten a lot better about this over the years. Of course students are taught to walk using the rudimentary components when they are lea
by sixothree 3y ago
I feel like schools have gotten a lot better about this over the years. Of course students are taught to walk using the rudimentary components when they are learning to program.
We had to write a B-tree implementation in Java when I was in school. I have used that knowledge exactly zero times. But I am betting algorithms are still important.
- TillE 3y agoYeah I got my undergrad CS degree (a good mix of theory and practice) about 20 years ago and I can't think of much that's truly outdated. I certainly don't use Java or MIPS32 assembly or Solaris these days, but that wasn't really the point of those classes. Even with truly obsolete stuff like the details of hard drive technology, there's something valuable to be learned in examining how people solved problems at the time with the tools they had.
- 082349872349872 3y agoThe B-tree has at least two lessons, independently of whether you ever re-implement one: (a) using trees instead of flat search gains an O(log n) over O(n) algorithmic factor, and (b) using chunky flat elements sized to the bandwidth-delay product of storage results in significant wall-clock (constant factor?) gains. I fail to see how CHS provides equivalently valuable lessons? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39826433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39826433