Data Structures for Coding Interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#201

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #101

FlyingSnake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what you get when you commoditise Computer Science. The article is about coding interviews and then goes on to deliver a lecture about "Computer science in plain English". Isn't it common knowledge that Computer Science and coding are like chalk and cheese? People used to study DataStructures for a whole semester to get a deep understanding of how these work, and the time/space complexities affect system desi…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#202

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

fundabulousrIII wrote: post #190

ubernostrum wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ah yes, "fundamentals". Also known as "everyone should have to go through the same hazing rituals I went through!"

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#203

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

kirRoyale wrote: post #148

ubernostrum wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, your comment doesn't make you seem like you're someone who actually knows anything about or is particularly good at coding -- rather, it makes you seem like someone desperate not to have to compete with a larger field of candidates, and grasping for any reason you can find to claim they shouldn't be allowed to try for the same jobs as you. Also, I'm quite sure someone could easily come up with comments…

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.

Also, I'm just going to quote it:

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 can produce something useful.

You don't see any arrogance here? All it needed was an avocado-toast reference to be indistinguishable from a "why millennials are terrible and my generation is much better than them" thinkpiece.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#204

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:11 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #85

ng12 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could have answered the question easily but what for? To show that you're not a complete diva who's willing to put in some work even if it's unpleasant? The question I ask is not real, either. It's entirely contrived. But I ask it because it's the best way I know to identify candidates who: 1. Can think critically about a data structure. 2. Can communicate with me about how to solve non-trivial problems. 3. Can t…

I always wonder about genius developers who throw fit when someone asks them to implement linked list (the actual chapter in the linked article). I understand the complaint when people get asked to balance red black trees out of nowhere or something else more complicated, but this article is very basic. Yeah, this can be memorized pretty easily, but "lets talk about how passionate you are" which is invariably suggest…

The only reasonable, real-world solution to the linked list question is "How many bids do you need for me to collect for licensing the third-party code library? Three? It's usually at least three. I'll look at Infragistics, JetBrains, and anything I can find that's open source, and get back to you by COB. Are there any specific features that the linked list has to have? Any deal breakers? Do we need official support, or is community forum support enough?"

You ask me to do a linked list--in 2017--and I'll have to start determining whether that smell is "Not Invented Here" or "Cargo Cult". How many languages don't have such lists as part of their standard libraries now (or at least part of a common libre-license or gratis-license library)?

But no... I'll just continue to answer the question as though my CS prof is grading me on it, and just convert my concerns into salary expectations for the negotiations phase. Any company that asks such questions is obviously bad at gauging real technical skill, therefore I should ask for way more money than I think I am worth, and invest all of my limited acting skill into believing that number. They are relying on me to tell them how good I am, so I will game the system, cram for their stupid questions, and tell them I am the absolute best.

Then I can spend all my working hours copy-pasting the answers to already-solved problems from the Internet.

The real genius developers are spending their free time helping lesser developers on Stack Exchange/Overflow for free, because the companies that hired them have no idea how to make use of that level of expertise, and that's the only way they ever get to encounter any fun or interesting problems to solve.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#205

Post by ethbro » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

FlyingSnake wrote: post #157

sgt101 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artizans, not artists. But I agree with your point, failure to understand hashtables is like failure to understand the secret nail in carpentry (I choose this as I've never understood the secret nail in carpentry and therefore do not count myself much of a carpenter). We shouldn't delude ourselves, software (at the moment) is a craft discipline and craft disciplines can have huge blind spots. Comp-sci needs to spend…

My bad, I misinterpreted your comment. I second the artisanal mindset that you have elaborated, and it will be better for everyone if we adopt the craftmans mindset (Which Cal Newport also talks about). I personally feel that we should model Software Engineering like the Apprenticeship model in Germany. It would be interesting to see how it fares.

I had someone reply to one of my comment that they 'didn't know about the Vietnam War because they weren't born then'.

... I feel like our discipline suffers from a lot of the same problems. IBM mainframe experience doesn't translate into knowing the intricacies of React, but it does provide wisdom on systems and usability problems people coding in React are going to run into too.

Glorify the new, but be informed by that which came before. Otherwise doom, repeating, etc.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#206

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

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…

A four year degree at a quality program will open up a lot of jobs that the one year of self learning will not prepare you for.

That's not to say one year of self learning won't prepare you for a lot of programming jobs, or that the person with the four year degree won't be starting at one of those same jobs. But there are a lot of types of software I would only want someone with a real CS degree writing.

(Of course, 1 year of self learning, plus 3 to 4 years of real world coding plus further supplemental self study, could very well get you to the same level as a CS grad's knowledge, or beyond.)

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#207

Post by virtualized » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

baruch wrote: post #142

virtualized wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most "senior developers" I know don't know much about data structures. Standards are pretty low in the industry. One reason might be that optimizing for memory consumption or handling "large scale data" almost never happens in practice.

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 work on embedded devices and no one really cares whether changing a setting takes 30 seconds or 30 milliseconds. It does not matter that most of the RAM is wasted by unnecessary copies of unnecessary data. People still buy these devices as long as they solve a problem at the end of the day.

I personally don't agree with this reasoning, but that's how businesses operate.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#208

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #131

seanwilson wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd really be fine hiring a senior developer that had no idea how a linked list, a hash table or a binary tree worked? Understanding which data structures are good for speed and memory usage is at a minimum required for memory constrained apps and dealing with large scale data.

Yes,I'd be fine with it as long as they could read and understand a table of data specifying the time and space complexity of various data structures and algorithms. The amount of programming done in memory constrained apps and for large scale data is tiny in comparison to all programming, most of which is very basic CRUD type work meant for use in resource rich environments at small scale.

"The amount of programming done in memory constrained apps and for large scale data is tiny in comparison to all programming, most of which is very basic CRUD type work meant for use in resource rich environments at small scale."

Thus, the other article on the front page about the staggering space requirements for phone apps.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#209

Post by Helmet » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:33 PM UTC

dozzie wrote: post #128

Mutinix wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would I want to hire you over someone who has seen a computer before? Because, you know, they invented Ruby on Rails and Homebrew? Incredible, really. You were so adamant on being hostile that you managed to put yourself over Max Howell and DHH in a couple of sentences. These people have made valuable contributions to the tech industry as it stands today. This is a fact and not an opinion. They invented Homebre…

> Except he created the most popular package manager in OSX history and companies still can't see that. First, Homebrew is just a rehash of package managers that were available on unices for more than a decade. Then, from what I hear, Homebrew was (still is?) badly designed and implemented for quite a long time, which is not an evidence of author's high skills (as a programmer, anyway).

This is so ridiculous that I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. If not, you are the very definition of why n-gate.com exists.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#210

Post by canes123456 » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

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…

This is bull shit. Are you also the kind of guy (I know you are a guy) that is also on the "look out" for "fake" geek girls? The homepage looks a lot like the programmers I meet. Do they need to be overweight and not care about how they look to be real programmers that can actually produce something useful?