Ask HN: I've been a programmer for 6 years, and I can't solve basic CS problems

My spouse started a bootcamp last year and I've helped her with many algorithm assignments. Even though I have a CS bachelor degree I still struggled with a lot of the algorithms exercises out there. It requires practice and there are actually a lot of subtleties that you don't experience while working on software projects.

A lot has to to with mathematics as well. You can work on projects with hundreds of thousands of dollars and face zero mathematical problems.

I spend a lot of time, dozens and dozens of hours, helping her with these algorithms on paper, whiteboard and writing them in code. I also struggled along with her through online algorithm and coding interview platforms like Hackerrank. Solving these algorithm is difficult and often ridiculously theoretical and out of touch with the daily routine of a software/web developer.

My spouse was very worried about not being able to solve these problems. She was scared that she will have to solve these things during the internship, but of course there are no mathematical algorithms to solve when you are working as a frontend developer.

I think the trend of mathematics during development courses and theoretical algorithm exercises during interviews are not doing us any good. Most companies are not Google and you can be a very valuable developer for 99% of the companies out there without being a whiteboard algorithm expert.

Coalescing those four lines onto one is fine, but writing:

    map(invert, (node.right, node.left))

is definitely not simpler than:

    invert(node.right), invert(node.left)

Indeed - I just wanted to write it in a form that could easily be mapped to languages which don't support multiple simultaneous assignments :)

> I'm a programmer and have been for around 5-6 years, I started with VB.NET since I first started learning, then progressed onto Web Development at a large agency for 4 years (PHP, JS, React) and I'm now back with VB.NET.

The running joke amongst "real" developers with CS background is that VB or web developers aren't real developers.

> It makes me question how I was hired in the first place.

Because your job require you know basic CS material? As long as you get the job done, that's all that matters.

> Sorry for the rant, but I was just wondering if anyone else felt like this.

I personally haven't because I have a CS degree but I'm sure many have. I've known musician, construction workers, bartenders, etc working as VB or web developers. As long as people get the job done, nobody really cares.

I wouldn't get too worked up about it since you are at a point where interviewers will never ask you basic CS questions.

I'm a little annoyed by the people who call these simple problems. There are no simple problems. Calling something simple is very insulting and demoralising.

It really depends on your experience and knowledge for what is simple for you.

You can have 20 years of experience developing projects and acquired a ton of valuable skills but when I shove a whiteboard in your face and tell you to solve some algorithm it's completely new and not simple at all.

Just as someone with a lot of theoretical CS knowledge will struggle if I present them with a failing dependency tree of 30 thousands NPM packages. Good luck solving that when you have never done it.