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Interviewee* And as someone who is about to graduate computer science, your rant makes me hopeful :) I am much better at refactoring and finding patterns than
by TrophyWipes 11y ago
Interviewee*
And as someone who is about to graduate computer science, your rant makes me hopeful :)
I am much better at refactoring and finding patterns than memorizing algorithms and other things (mainly because they are relatively easy to look up). Do you suggest that I try to strike a specific balance between practicing dealing with complexity, optimizing and making code readable, versus actually trying to memorize and implement certain algorithms for learning's sake?
- rsuelzer 11y agoI'm not a computer science grad, and it puts me at a huge disadvantage simply because I never had any formal training about algorithms. And my day job is to write testable, well-designed production quality code. I don't get to spend a lot of time rewriting algorithms, which as you note, can be easily looked up. The fact is that as a full-stack developer I can count with zero fingers the amount of times I've had to use an self-made algorithm in a production system. That being said, I do force myself to practice algorithms thru various coding challenges only because I know that this is the specific skill that will land you a job. Which is a shame. That is not to say that there are not positions that really do require this specific skill, but the vast majority of development positions don't and yet nearly every employer tests their candidates as if their success depends upon their ability to solve an algo in under 5 minutes, instead of their ability to write a good library. It's a disservice to those of us who do not have CS degrees and have learned to code by spending a great deal of our time writing code.