In my mind this is breaking down the problem into a relevant data structure and algorithms that operate on that data structure. If for instance you used a tree

In my mind this is breaking down the problem into a relevant data structure and algorithms that operate on that data structure. If for instance you used a tree but were constantly looking up an index in the tree you likely needed a flat array instead. The most basic example of this is sorting, obviously but the same basic concepts apply to many many problems. I think the issue that happens in modern times, specially in webdev, is we aren't actually solving problems. We are just glueing services together and marshalling data around which fundamentally doesn't need to be algorithmic... Most "coders" are glorified secretaries who now just automate what would have been done by a secretary before. Call service A (database/ S3 etc), remove irrelevant data, send to service B, give feedback. It's just significantly harder to do this in a computer than for a human to do it. For instance if I give you a list of names but some of them have letters swapped around you could likely easily see that and correct it. To do that "algorithmically" is likely impossible and hence ML and NLP became a thing. And data validation on user input. So algorithmically in the modern sense is more, follow these steps exactly to produce this outcome and generating user flows where that is the only option. Human do logic much much better than computers but I think the conclusion has become that the worst computer program is probably better at it that the average human. Just look at many niche products catered to X wealth group. I could have a cheap bank account and do exactly what is required by that bank account or I can pay a lot of money and have a private banker that I can call and they will interpret what I say into the actions that actually need to happen... I feel I am struggling to actually write what's in my mind but hopefully that gives you an idea... To answer your nothing clever , well clever is relative. If I have some code which is effectively a array and an algorithm to remove index 'X' from it, would it be "clever" code to you if that array was labeled "Carousel" and I used the exact same generic algorithms to insert or remove elements from the carousel? For most developers these days they expect to have a class of some sort with a .append and .remove function but why isn't it just an array of structs which use the exact same functions as every single other array... That people generally will complain that that code is "clever" but in reality it is really dumb. I can see it's clearly an array being operated on but OOP has caused brain rot and developers actually don't know what that means... Wait maybe that was OPs point... People no longer think algorithmically. --- Machine learning, Natural Language Processing