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

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

#41

Post by MBCook »

cs0 wrote: post #31

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my rant. I felt of low value for not being able to provide immediate help for most of the problems that she's being taught to work on. Some of the examples (since some of you were asking for them): https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... I realise that I may have written my original post a…

Is there a particular part of these problems that is stumping you? Perhaps breaking them down into smaller sub-problems? Where is it something else?

Based on your original description I was expecting something more heavy on straight CS theory. “how do you sort an unordered binary tree in place“ kind of thing.

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

#42

Post by Jtsummers »

supercall wrote: post #35
swatcoder wrote: post #10

Think of it this way: application development, software engineering, and computer science (and data science and ... etc) sometimes use the same tools but are all different disciplines. Universities traditionally focused on Computer Science and their graduates would often need a lot of grooming before they could really be independently and reliably productive in the commercial words of application development or softw…

What's the difference between application development and software engineering?

You can apply software engineering to develop an application, but you can also do application development without any proper software engineering.

Software Engineering is a design discipline, management discipline, and engineering discipline. Application development is (principally) the act of building an application by writing code. It doesn't require design, management, or engineering discipline to accomplish. But it's better if you've done those things (minimally, the engineering and design portions).

At the same time, a junior software engineer may not be responsible for anything but the writing of code, where others have determined the design and engineering aspects and are conducting project management for them. Or with only limited responsibility (such as developing tests for the aspects they're responsible for developing, which is a part of the engineering discipline: V&V).

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

#43

Post by whack »

cs0 wrote: post #31

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my rant. I felt of low value for not being able to provide immediate help for most of the problems that she's being taught to work on. Some of the examples (since some of you were asking for them): https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... I realise that I may have written my original post a…

The examples you gave are very helpful in giving more context. I'm guessing that you're productive in your job, because you know the details of how to use language ABC, framework XYZ and the various patterns for solving common industry problems using ABC and XYZ. The part you seem to be weak in, is abstract problem solving. Ie, coming up with a pseudo-code algorithm that will accomplish some abstract goal that you've never come across before.

This requires a completely different skillset. You rarely have to come up with novel algorithms when building a CRUD app, hence why you've never gotten the chance to practice those skills. That said, it's definitely worth learning - if nothing else because it will help you in job interviews.

There's no shortcut to this. Go on leetcode or hackerrank or similar sites - or do all the homework assignments and projects along with your fiance. You're working out a brand new muscle, so it will definitely seem frustrating at first, but you'll get much better with practice.

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

#44

Post by hmmk »

cs0 wrote: post #31

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my rant. I felt of low value for not being able to provide immediate help for most of the problems that she's being taught to work on. Some of the examples (since some of you were asking for them): https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... I realise that I may have written my original post a…

What exactly did you have trouble with? These really are simple problems, all you need are an understanding of loops, ASCII character codes, and basic arithmetic.

To be honest, I'm surprised a seasoned developer of 5+ years can't do these, or at least have a decent stab at them.

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

#45

Post by topkai22 »

anyfoo wrote: post #23
peterwwillis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are fundamental to writing applications. That's funny, I must not have written any applications in the past 14 years. (Seriously though, I read one algorithms book when I was 16, and used those algorithms approximately... five times... in the past decade and a half)

Serious question: How do you know that in the applications that you have written in the past 14 years, there aren't any spots that could be considerably improved in runtime behavior and cost? I remember being a programmer before studying formal computer science, I definitely wrote some slow and bad code that I just didn't know could be much better, and/or simpler.

This remains a serious problem on my team- Over half my team members don’t have CS degrees. They get an enormous amount done, but there is often a perf or maintainability cost.

I have no intention of swapping them out because they ultimately provide enormous value, but it’s noticeable.

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

#46

Post by peterwwillis »

topkai22 wrote: post #45
anyfoo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: How do you know that in the applications that you have written in the past 14 years, there aren't any spots that could be considerably improved in runtime behavior and cost? I remember being a programmer before studying formal computer science, I definitely wrote some slow and bad code that I just didn't know could be much better, and/or simpler.

This remains a serious problem on my team- Over half my team members don’t have CS degrees. They get an enormous amount done, but there is often a perf or maintainability cost. I have no intention of swapping them out because they ultimately provide enormous value, but it’s noticeable.

Is it the algorithmic efficiency that's the problem, or the ability to scale the application?

I've seen things some people wouldn't believe. mod_perl 1.4 on Apache 2.0 handling 350,000 hps dynamic traffic on twenty archaic 1U's. Five tiers of caching, serialized objects on local disks, NFS in production. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate. Who cares about inefficiency if it scales?

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

#47

Post by cs0 »

MBCook wrote: post #41
cs0 wrote: post #31

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my rant. I felt of low value for not being able to provide immediate help for most of the problems that she's being taught to work on. Some of the examples (since some of you were asking for them): https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... I realise that I may have written my original post a…

Is there a particular part of these problems that is stumping you? Perhaps breaking them down into smaller sub-problems? Where is it something else? Based on your original description I was expecting something more heavy on straight CS theory. “how do you sort an unordered binary tree in place“ kind of thing.

I've never been so great with figuring out loops to iterate over things and the like.

And some of the questions being posed (which are all expected to be solved in C) are a little tricky for me to figure out on my own without some of the niceties which I have been exposed to in higher level languages.

Perhaps the hardest of these was the Credit Card Validation example.

I was stuck for such a long time on trying to figure out how to utilise an array with for loops to multiply every second number of the card backwards.

This is Introduction to Computer Science and all of this is from week 1, so I was pretty much falling at the first hurdle.

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

#48

Post by swayvil »

Me too. I even invented slightly famous stuff.

It's like this:

There's reality.

Then there's a map of reality which is, for obvious reasons, pretty fucking far from reality.

Then there's the map of the map, which is delusionoid-squared.

In this case you are dealing with the level2 map. Most of us don't take it too seriously.

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

#49

Post by beering »

I wonder if it can be analogized to a line cook (you) vs someone going to culinary school (your fiancee). In your day job you execute consistently and skilfully, but if you were put in front of a pantry full of miscellaneous ingredients and told to come up with a dessert you might struggle.

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

#50

Post by cs0 »

hmmk wrote: post #44
cs0 wrote: post #31

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my rant. I felt of low value for not being able to provide immediate help for most of the problems that she's being taught to work on. Some of the examples (since some of you were asking for them): https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... https://github.com/cs50/docs/blob/master/_pages/2018/x/psets... I realise that I may have written my original post a…

What exactly did you have trouble with? These really are simple problems, all you need are an understanding of loops, ASCII character codes, and basic arithmetic. To be honest, I'm surprised a seasoned developer of 5+ years can't do these, or at least have a decent stab at them.

I just replied above, but I've never been amazing at being able to figure out how I should be using for loops to solve problems quickly and efficiently.

I do tend to make things harder for myself, as my boss and fianceè have told me before.

I usually end up with a very convoluted solution which I end up coming back to and refactoring the next day.

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