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Data Structures for Coding Interviews

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Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#181

Post by seanwilson »

ubernostrum wrote: post #174
baruch wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had a software development job where optimizing memory consumption and handling large scale data (for whatever definition of large was for that particular system) wasn't a necessity. It was also useful to know when these measures were and weren't needed depending on the context in the system. I do mostly what's called "systems programming" and did embedded previously but also did some work on "normal" softwar…

I do mostly what's called "systems programming" and did embedded Sure. And what's most crucial to do in those fields is not necessarily what's most crucial to do in other fields. 99% of interview horror stories are basically someone saying "I decided this is an important thing based on my narrow perspective, and anyone who doesn't know it as well as I do will be dismissed as completely incapable".

If you're already good at programming and didn't learn computer science foundations along the way it should literally take you a few hours to understand the majority of the core data structures. I don't understand why people complain about common interview questions when you can readily learn the answers in advance.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#182

Post by sidlls »

lmm wrote: post #171
sidlls wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see. You don't believe you're playing what you call a status game, even when you are.

The perspective that it's all a status game is legitimate in its own way, but not the only way to view things. I find there's a useful distinction to draw betwen trying to influence people's perceptions directly versus trying to do something valuable and trusting people to perceive it for themselves, and find the latter a lot more fun than the former.

See, the thing is that you keep calling it a "status game" when it's not really clear what you mean, other than to belittle work others do because it isn't solving algo puzzles.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#184

Post by sidlls »

seanwilson wrote: post #179
ubernostrum wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to implement off the top of one's head is a skill that fades as soon as one is no longer required to do so. Requiring it as a criterion of hiring is, essentially, a back-door way of saying "we only hire people fresh out of college", since they're the ones who've recently been having to do this stuff on exams and have it fresh in their minds.

> Being able to implement off the top of one's head is a skill that fades as soon as one is no longer required to do so. I haven't implemented a hash table, linked list, growable array or binary tree for years but know I could because I understand how they work and I select which one to use often while coding. I find it hard to understand how you could claim to know how those data structures work and not be able to i…

My point was that most of the time one doesn't need to know how they work in the first place for the vast majority of programming. Simply memorizing or referencing a card with very simple performance metrics (e.g. "dict: fast map of keys to values; array: very fast lookup by integer index") is sufficient for most cases today. Very few people who are doing any programming work need to know that the "dict" is a hashtable or some esoteric data structure with similar performance, or even anything else at all about it except for the API for it.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#185

Post by seanwilson »

Bahamut wrote: post #180
seanwilson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most "senior developers" I know don't know much about data structures. Standards are pretty low in the industry. Even if standards were low, the point of an interview is to gauge the standard of the developer. Algorithms and data structures knowledge is important.

How important though? Rarely does it come into play from my experience, at least for those who work in predominantly the UI layer on the web. Even at my job at Big Co. as a senior engineer (algorithms/data structures knowledge is necessary to pass the interview process here), it hasn’t manifested in a significant way, at least not compared to other skills such as architecting systems for maintainability, identifying…

I'm not saying it's impossible to code without knowing this stuff, just that it gives you an edge as it helps a lot when you have to deal with memory and speed constraints. If you're coding UIs for web apps, you're probably not going to run into issues unless you're dealing with large collection or collections where the record sizes are big. If you're writing backend processes, mobile apps, games, embedded apps, graphics processing apps etc. knowing algorithms and data structures is important.

Would you really want to work with an architect who had no understanding of algorithmic complexity, linked lists or hash tables? An architect needs to know how to design something that will scale to the data involved; I don't see how you can do that if you're ignorant about basic data structures and algorithms.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#186

Post by andrew_wc_brown »

Big yellow newsletter box interrupts my reading that I was compelled enough to open inspector and remove it.

The pricing makes no sense, that or its not obvious what you are getting in the full-course.

The testimonials appear phony. I believe in products when I recognize programmer celebrities or the testimonials link to a github or something to prove they are legit.

The pay box is sketch. Even though its powered by stripe. I'm not dumping my credit card without CVC, expiry and postal code.

There's nothing on here you can't already find for free. The value to me is saving time. I've done this before but forget because web-programming the last 10 years rarely required to commit this stuff to memory.

I'm a different use case I suppose but I want a super abridge version. I just don't want to a spend a week. I want to spend a few hours.

Theres nothing telling me how much time I will spending having to read through this course material.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#187

Post by pklausler »

nxsynonym wrote: post #161
daliwali wrote: post #87

I got an impression who their target audience is, based on the examples used, drinking kombucha and listening to Spotify. All the young, beautiful people who wouldn't have ever taken a computer science course if it weren't such a lucrative industry to be in right now. Maybe with this guide they can pass an interview at a big company where they just twiddle with bits all day. I won't be holding my breath until they ca…

Blame the young, beautiful people all you want for not slaving away over a 4 year degree that puts them in the same position as 1 year of self learning would get them, OR blame the business yuppies who keep coming up with the SaaS business models that don't need anything more than plug and play code monkeys. I understand memorizing data structures does not make a good engineer, but honestly who is still asking for cr…

Basically every place I've worked for in the last 35 years has been desperately seeking new grads who can actually program a computer. And it's getting harder to find them.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#188

Post by JustSomeNobody »

sheldor wrote: post #104
sgt101 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't science, or engineering, because many of the things that count in computing defy measurement : - code quality - software productivity - expected time between failure - tolerance to error - expected life in field - usefulness to users Because the science and engineering cultures of computing have failed to address these effectively, or even create cultural norms that support their development, a craft culture…

Nailed it. I have a very hard time explaining to my youngster colleagues that they're neither "engineers" nor "scientists'. Now I can use your words.

I have an actual engineering degree and write code that controls some sophisticated hardware. Am I allowed to be called an engineer and not an artisan or whatever?

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#189

Post by seanwilson »

sidlls wrote: post #184
seanwilson wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being able to implement off the top of one's head is a skill that fades as soon as one is no longer required to do so. I haven't implemented a hash table, linked list, growable array or binary tree for years but know I could because I understand how they work and I select which one to use often while coding. I find it hard to understand how you could claim to know how those data structures work and not be able to i…

My point was that most of the time one doesn't need to know how they work in the first place for the vast majority of programming. Simply memorizing or referencing a card with very simple performance metrics (e.g. "dict: fast map of keys to values; array: very fast lookup by integer index") is sufficient for most cases today. Very few people who are doing any programming work need to know that the "dict" is a hashtab…

If someone can memorise how a dictionary and an array work, why would they have trouble quickly understanding how a hash table works for example? To me, coding for years and never coming across or being curious about understanding hash tables when they're applicable in so many places and not hard to understand is a bad sign. I don't care about more esoteric data structures but linked lists, hash tables, arrays and binary trees should be basic knowledge.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#190

Post by fundabulousrIII »

ubernostrum wrote: post #155
kirRoyale wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think their comment was arrogant. When I saw "Data Structures" for interviews, I didn't think it would be explaining binary to us.

Usually, any "(X) for Interviews" post is a review of things that in theory a programmer learns very early on and then forgets due to disuse (since most programming interviews are essentially pop quizzes on such things). The ironic thing is that this biases toward the most newly-minted programmer; actual experienced working programmers rarely need to implement basic data structures or their relevant algorithms from s…

It should be mandatory for programmers to be able to concoct even bad examples of a sort algorithm in real time and create data structures for anything from a linked list to binary trees.

It is also important to have candidate code samples for an interview with dissection and analysis by the candidate. This is to understand where the programmer is in their professional development, how much is copy-paste and how much is functional and design integration. All this demonstrates level of knowledge and the candidates productive approaches.

Having to teach programmers how to deal with recursion and other fundamental concepts or language specific approaches like pointer arithmetic or interpreted language nuances like lambda calculus and list comprehension should not be on the table.

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