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Self taught programmer in a senior position here. Frankly pointing to to being able to implement algorithms as a measure of a programmer's ability is next to u
by hartror 14y ago
Self taught programmer in a senior position here.
Frankly pointing to to being able to implement algorithms as a measure of a programmer's ability is next to useless. Any code monkey can ape a data structure they've seen in a book. Designing code so when requirements are changed you can easily swap that data structure with another is the real test.
ps I can implement any number is algorithms and design patterns, though I rarely get to.
- mgkimsal 14y agoI posted a much longer reply just now, but you get to the heart of it. On your PS of "I rarely get to", would you go further and say "I rarely need to" as well? Because that's how I feel for about 95% of the work I do. There's a few places in larger projects where I enjoy getting to test out a few different approaches to data structures in anticipation of potential use cases (speed, concurrency, reporting needs, etc). But after a while, I tend to know in advance what will work 'well enough' (or maybe even what the 'optimal' structures are) and don't need to (or get to) spend much time experimenting.