5 ms·

While I can answer some of these questions (and could answer them all a few years ago while attending university) this kind of knowledge is simply not something

by amix 14y ago

While I can answer some of these questions (and could answer them all a few years ago while attending university) this kind of knowledge is simply not something that I use on a daily basis. I also doubt that many others developers use it unless they have very specialized jobs. These kind of questions should not be the only basis of the software development final exam. In software development problem solving, communication with others, knowledge of the tools etc. are much more important than knowing random knowledge about algorithms. And these skills are much harder to test than asking the worst-case run time of quicksort.

topbanana 14y ago
Yes, this is CompSci, not software engineering
- peteretep 14y ago
  Then perhaps the author shouldn't be presenting them as practical issues, and claim that people who don't know the answers either shouldn't be programmers, or work in some tiny niche. You read the context article he linked to, right?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - mquander 14y ago
    Just to get the facts straight, the linked article had this to say: If you can't answer the majority of the questions on these four papers, and you're working or intend to work as a software developer, you should ask yourself why — most likely you're either you're missing something you really should know, or you're lucky enough to be working within a narrow area where your deficit doesn't matter. The reader can judge for themselves whether this is claiming that "people who don't know the answers shouldn't be programmers." I personally find that characterization rather rude toward the author.
    - peteretep 14y ago
      I guess it depends if you interpret: > you should ask yourself why As referring to "you can't answer the majority of the questions" or "you're working or intend to work as a software developer". I read it as the latter, but I guess it could also be read as the former.
      - cperciva 14y ago
        The intention was "why don't you know these things", in the sense of "I really think you should go out and learn / re-learn these areas, because I think it's very likely that knowing them better will help you produce better code".
    - clinth 14y ago
      > or you're lucky enough to be working within a narrow area where your deficit doesn't matter This implies that non-algorithmic work is a narrow area. In my experience, it's the vast majority.
      - cperciva 14y ago
        You've only seen 1/4 of the exam so far. Sure, there's plenty of software development which doesn't involve fancy algorithms or data structures... avoiding computer architecture, operating systems, mathematics, networking, databases, and distributed systems as well is a bit harder.
        clinth 14y ago
        I see that you're the author. Thanks for replying! > Sure, there's plenty of software development which doesn't involve fancy algorithms or data structures... avoiding computer architecture, operating systems, mathematics, networking, databases, and distributed systems as well is a bit harder. This is at odds with the statement in your article that jumped out at me: "If you can't answer the majority of the questions on these four papers, and you're working or intend to work as a software developer, you should ask yourself why--" I disagree, and furthermore, adding more topics means that your assertion is going to be less accurate. Of course, it's better to know more, and I'm glad to have a computer science degree. However, I think that conflating having a computer science background and general software development is confirmation bias. I don't have data to back me up, but I believe that it's more common to simply not need to know what a bipartite graph is, or even a majority set of these topics. Given the theoretical grounding of the question in your first block, I'm guessing that parts 2-4 will be similarly structured. Computer science is one slice of software development. Software development is a huge, deep field. A software development exam could just as easily contain an exam including the following topics: communicating effectively through email, distilling requirements from customers, writing meaningful commit messages, testing theory, or hundreds of other non-theoretical topics. What I'm trying to say is that your exam is a good reminder of computer science at the root of many of the fields of knowledge in software, and is fun, but it's not representative of software development. In a given year, most software developers are going to spend more time puzzling through garden-variety implementation bugs than thinking about any two of the questions you list. Which is why they're not "lucky". :)
- pjmlp 14y ago
  It depends on the country. My degree in Portugal was a 5 year degree with lectures from computer science and software engineering.
shrughes 14y ago
They're the sort of thing I use on a daily^H^H^H^H^Hfrequent basis. The questions are not asking trivia questions or looking for knowledge, they're asking questions whose answers can be figured out.
- nollidge 14y ago
  How do you "figure out" what a B-tree is? That's a trivia question.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - sukuriant 14y ago
    My school didn't teach B-trees, though they did teach 2-4 trees. I've never really been in a situation where I've needed to use a B-tree; and, I was an accomplished competition programmer in college. That said, I looked up on the internet what they were and it was pretty easy to follow.
    - shrughes 14y ago
      It would be very cool if there was a programming contest problem that required efficient disk access.
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        There are some problems that require efficient reading, which is from the disk; and some that require efficient writing --- though that's more of just "buffer your outputs and don't use complex print methods, like System.out.printf"
  - shrughes 14y ago
    Right, you need to know certain things. But the point of the question is not that you know what a B-tree is a have memorized a fact about the btree. The point is the followup question, which requires you to understand the consequences of using different kinds of trees. That's not the sort of thing you memorize, it's the sort of thing you internalize. If you can't answer the second question, you probably wouldn't know enough about trees to be able to casually think about certain problems you might come across in "systems programming".
lifeformed 14y ago
I don't know these answers off the top of my head, but if I needed to know them in the real world, I could easily find them out in a couple of seconds or minutes with Google and Wikipedia. The difference between me and someone who is unfamiliar with computer science (but is still good with Google) is that I can read the answers and their corresponding articles and understand what they mean, as opposed to the other person, who would just be able to recite the answers as trivia.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Actually a few years into the industry, I would doubt any body who claims to know these things straight out of this heart(Unless that is his day job). Seriously do people remember all this math all the years they are building software? Unless you spend a great deal of time revisiting these concepts every other month, there is no way this is all going to be in your head. And if you actually are spending that amount of time learning this kind of math, I would wonder what kind of a programmer you are. A programmer is supposed to build things in this time, gaining mountains of factual knowledge which doesn't have much value in the real world is not very good use of time. By the way this algo/DS love looks very similar to tool religion. People focus too much on tools used to solve problem, while they should actually be focused on problems.
  - eru 14y ago
    Those questions strike me as very basic knowledge. Why would I need to revise constantly to keep that in mind? And yes, you are right, you can get away without knowing that stuff, and still do awesome work. And you can know all those things, and never get anything done.

by amix 14y ago

topbanana 14y ago

Yes, this is CompSci, not software engineering

peteretep 14y ago
Then perhaps the author shouldn't be presenting them as practical issues, and claim that people who don't know the answers either shouldn't be programmers, or work in some tiny niche. You read the context article he linked to, right?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mquander 14y ago
  Just to get the facts straight, the linked article had this to say: If you can't answer the majority of the questions on these four papers, and you're working or intend to work as a software developer, you should ask yourself why — most likely you're either you're missing something you really should know, or you're lucky enough to be working within a narrow area where your deficit doesn't matter. The reader can judge for themselves whether this is claiming that "people who don't know the answers shouldn't be programmers." I personally find that characterization rather rude toward the author.
  - peteretep 14y ago
    I guess it depends if you interpret: > you should ask yourself why As referring to "you can't answer the majority of the questions" or "you're working or intend to work as a software developer". I read it as the latter, but I guess it could also be read as the former.
    - cperciva 14y ago
      The intention was "why don't you know these things", in the sense of "I really think you should go out and learn / re-learn these areas, because I think it's very likely that knowing them better will help you produce better code".
  - clinth 14y ago
    > or you're lucky enough to be working within a narrow area where your deficit doesn't matter This implies that non-algorithmic work is a narrow area. In my experience, it's the vast majority.
    - cperciva 14y ago
      You've only seen 1/4 of the exam so far. Sure, there's plenty of software development which doesn't involve fancy algorithms or data structures... avoiding computer architecture, operating systems, mathematics, networking, databases, and distributed systems as well is a bit harder.
      - clinth 14y ago
        I see that you're the author. Thanks for replying! > Sure, there's plenty of software development which doesn't involve fancy algorithms or data structures... avoiding computer architecture, operating systems, mathematics, networking, databases, and distributed systems as well is a bit harder. This is at odds with the statement in your article that jumped out at me: "If you can't answer the majority of the questions on these four papers, and you're working or intend to work as a software developer, you should ask yourself why--" I disagree, and furthermore, adding more topics means that your assertion is going to be less accurate. Of course, it's better to know more, and I'm glad to have a computer science degree. However, I think that conflating having a computer science background and general software development is confirmation bias. I don't have data to back me up, but I believe that it's more common to simply not need to know what a bipartite graph is, or even a majority set of these topics. Given the theoretical grounding of the question in your first block, I'm guessing that parts 2-4 will be similarly structured. Computer science is one slice of software development. Software development is a huge, deep field. A software development exam could just as easily contain an exam including the following topics: communicating effectively through email, distilling requirements from customers, writing meaningful commit messages, testing theory, or hundreds of other non-theoretical topics. What I'm trying to say is that your exam is a good reminder of computer science at the root of many of the fields of knowledge in software, and is fun, but it's not representative of software development. In a given year, most software developers are going to spend more time puzzling through garden-variety implementation bugs than thinking about any two of the questions you list. Which is why they're not "lucky". :)
pjmlp 14y ago
It depends on the country. My degree in Portugal was a 5 year degree with lectures from computer science and software engineering.

shrughes 14y ago

They're the sort of thing I use on a daily^H^H^H^H^Hfrequent basis. The questions are not asking trivia questions or looking for knowledge, they're asking questions whose answers can be figured out.

nollidge 14y ago
How do you "figure out" what a B-tree is? That's a trivia question.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- sukuriant 14y ago
  My school didn't teach B-trees, though they did teach 2-4 trees. I've never really been in a situation where I've needed to use a B-tree; and, I was an accomplished competition programmer in college. That said, I looked up on the internet what they were and it was pretty easy to follow.
  - shrughes 14y ago
    It would be very cool if there was a programming contest problem that required efficient disk access.
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      There are some problems that require efficient reading, which is from the disk; and some that require efficient writing --- though that's more of just "buffer your outputs and don't use complex print methods, like System.out.printf"
- shrughes 14y ago
  Right, you need to know certain things. But the point of the question is not that you know what a B-tree is a have memorized a fact about the btree. The point is the followup question, which requires you to understand the consequences of using different kinds of trees. That's not the sort of thing you memorize, it's the sort of thing you internalize. If you can't answer the second question, you probably wouldn't know enough about trees to be able to casually think about certain problems you might come across in "systems programming".

lifeformed 14y ago

I don't know these answers off the top of my head, but if I needed to know them in the real world, I could easily find them out in a couple of seconds or minutes with Google and Wikipedia. The difference between me and someone who is unfamiliar with computer science (but is still good with Google) is that I can read the answers and their corresponding articles and understand what they mean, as opposed to the other person, who would just be able to recite the answers as trivia.

kamaal 14y ago
Actually a few years into the industry, I would doubt any body who claims to know these things straight out of this heart(Unless that is his day job). Seriously do people remember all this math all the years they are building software? Unless you spend a great deal of time revisiting these concepts every other month, there is no way this is all going to be in your head. And if you actually are spending that amount of time learning this kind of math, I would wonder what kind of a programmer you are. A programmer is supposed to build things in this time, gaining mountains of factual knowledge which doesn't have much value in the real world is not very good use of time. By the way this algo/DS love looks very similar to tool religion. People focus too much on tools used to solve problem, while they should actually be focused on problems.
- eru 14y ago
  Those questions strike me as very basic knowledge. Why would I need to revise constantly to keep that in mind? And yes, you are right, you can get away without knowing that stuff, and still do awesome work. And you can know all those things, and never get anything done.