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> Someone who has studied CS and software engineering for decades will craft different prompts from someone without that background. This, to me, is the bigges

> Someone who has studied CS and software engineering for decades will craft different prompts from someone without that background. This, to me, is the biggest differentiator. In terms of results, there's a huge yawning chasm between the person who says "Claude make me a $thing" versus the person who puts in the effort to lay down the overall architecture, gives some thoughts to libraries and dependencies, performance trade-offs etc, and only then begins prompting. Knowing how to implement Djikstra or a linked list by heart is no longer important. Actual software engineering skills are more important than ever.

xyzzy_plugh 3mo ago
> Knowing how to implement Djikstra or a linked list by heart is no longer important. This was never important. The important part was always knowing when to use them.
- stackghost 3mo ago
  >The important part was always knowing when to use them. Two things can be true simultaneously. I think there was a time when deep familiarity with implementing algorithms was important.
  - gpderetta 3mo ago
    always was. Still is.
  - SJC_Hacker 3mo ago
    It is for coding interviews
- lubujackson 3mo ago
  Even more narrow - you only need to know when to consider them. I only ever bothered remembering enough of any algorithm to know my options and a few rules of thumb. If I ever actually need to consider the details of the algorithm, I certainly need to spend a lot more time thinking through the problem and its solution. Knowing a specific algorithm well enough to pump out in 15 minutes is a party trick that is as useful as being able to change a tire in 3 minutes flat. A great time saver that will be functionally useful maybe 3 times in your life...
system2 3mo ago
The gap is closing; a shitty wannabe programmer will eventually learn the structures one way or another. Agentic coding just got many new people involved, and these new people create noise.

xyzzy_plugh 3mo ago

> Knowing how to implement Djikstra or a linked list by heart is no longer important. This was never important. The important part was always knowing when to use them.

stackghost 3mo ago
>The important part was always knowing when to use them. Two things can be true simultaneously. I think there was a time when deep familiarity with implementing algorithms was important.
- gpderetta 3mo ago
  always was. Still is.
- SJC_Hacker 3mo ago
  It is for coding interviews
lubujackson 3mo ago
Even more narrow - you only need to know when to consider them. I only ever bothered remembering enough of any algorithm to know my options and a few rules of thumb. If I ever actually need to consider the details of the algorithm, I certainly need to spend a lot more time thinking through the problem and its solution. Knowing a specific algorithm well enough to pump out in 15 minutes is a party trick that is as useful as being able to change a tire in 3 minutes flat. A great time saver that will be functionally useful maybe 3 times in your life...

system2 3mo ago

The gap is closing; a shitty wannabe programmer will eventually learn the structures one way or another. Agentic coding just got many new people involved, and these new people create noise.