Data Structures for Coding Interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#221

Post by daliwali » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:35 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…

I wasn't suggesting that a 4 year degree confers any advantage. I think it's merely status signalling to potential employers. Practically speaking, my degree only helped me at one point in my life: moving to a foreign country.

There's nothing wrong with software that only needs code monkeys to write. It doesn't have to be technical masterpiece to be useful, or valuable to business. Just think of all the code monkeys with jobs.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#222

Post by daliwali » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #143

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…

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'm not too worried. There are Indians who will do my job for $15/hr. The fact that they haven't undercut the whole industry doesn't surprise me.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#223

Post by daliwali » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #203

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.

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…

I'm a millenial myself, not older than the people I am critiquing. (after looking up your profile I realize that I am much younger than you)

My comment was made in jest, pointing out how incongruent technical interviews can be to the job they're interviewing for, which I think doesn't imply any arrogance. Maybe you are reading it differently.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#224

Post by sidlls » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #208

sidlls wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's amusing that you think these apps are developed by people who aren't CS grads that have not been put through the absurd hazing ritual that is the modern interview.

Look at Facebook's monster, for example.

The reason these apps are bloated is because too much attention is paid to basic CS and not enough to engineering.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#225

Post by dozzie » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 7:37 PM UTC

Helmet wrote: post #209

dozzie wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which part is ridiculous? The fact that Dpkg, RPM, their peers, and infrastructure on top of all that (APT, up2date, Yum, BSD ports, Gentoo Portage, and so on) existed for a long time before Homebrew, the fact that people were constantly complaining about Homebrew breaking their installed packages on update, the fact that it used to require /usr/local to be user-owned, or the fact that it wasn't using (still isn't? I haven't checked) cryptographic signatures for downloading software to install?

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#226

Post by seanwilson » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #224

jimbokun wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It's amusing that you think these apps are developed by people who aren't CS grads that have not been put through the absurd hazing ritual that is the modern interview. Look at Facebook's monster, for example. The reason these apps are bloated is because too much attention is paid to basic CS and not enough to engineering.

I don't understand this kind of reasoning. Why would knowing basic CS correlate with you not caring about memory, storage and CPU usage? It's really grating to be tarred with this brush that having an academic background means you don't know how to optimise or write practical code.

Surely not having a basic CS background means you're not going to be great at picking the right data structures and algorithms? Coders that over abstract and build layers and layers of interfaces likely didn't learn that from university.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#227

Post by nikofeyn » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

piyush_soni wrote: post #91

nikofeyn wrote: post #15

i actually have began to enjoy places that use these types of things for interview questions. it's a good way for me to know that i don't want to work there. i once interviewed at a prominent company focusing on a certain language. they specifically stated in their job application that they just wanted motivated, enthusiastic, and smart people and that they didn't care if you knew said language. i sent them my resume…

I don't know. I get your point and understand that language is just a tool, but having a vast code base in our company in C++ (for example), we have actively interviewed people who had experience in that language and were not just "smart", as we needed someone who could quickly get to work and we don't have to teach him inheritance and virtual functions from the beginning. Also, not sure about other languages, but ef…

just as an elaboration, i was already an expert in another language. my primary skill is robust code and architecture, something that is completely missed by what i consider trivia questions.

although, i can understand if you have very specific needs for a language and need help asap. but i can also wager that people are missing out on some strong talent if they take too short term of a view. that is particularly applicable to potential employees from other fields. i was a mathematician turned software engineer and brought skills that no interview touched on. i just got initially lucky out of graduate school because of some connections.

and yea, i would consider c++ to be one of the most complex languages around, which is why i don't touch it. haha.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#228

Post by canes123456 » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 11:10 PM UTC

daliwali wrote: post #218

canes123456 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is this a personal attack on me? :^) The projection in your comment is unreal: a just world fallacy where only unattractive people can be smart, attractive people are mindless, which was definitely not the point.

How exactly is this projection? Your original comment was stereotyping real developers based on their appearance. They were not "legit developers" in your eyes because of how they looked. I am looking at the home page photos and it is not like they all look like models. They are younger and better looking than average but they would not look out of place on any dev team. This nonsense about what a developer looks like is pure bullshit. Why assume that a person is any less of a legit developer based on your image of how devs look? Why is more OK than any other kind of stereotyping? How is it better than stereotyping woman and driving?

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#229

Post by daliwali » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 1:13 AM UTC

canes123456 wrote: post #228

daliwali wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a personal attack on me? :^) The projection in your comment is unreal: a just world fallacy where only unattractive people can be smart, attractive people are mindless, which was definitely not the point.

How exactly is this projection? Your original comment was stereotyping real developers based on their appearance. They were not "legit developers" in your eyes because of how they looked. I am looking at the home page photos and it is not like they all look like models. They are younger and better looking than average but they would not look out of place on any dev team. This nonsense about what a developer looks lik…

It was clearly not my intention to judge programming competency by appearance. But it is also undeniable that the industry does select for young, good looking people.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#230

Post by sidlls » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #226

sidlls wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amusing that you think these apps are developed by people who aren't CS grads that have not been put through the absurd hazing ritual that is the modern interview. Look at Facebook's monster, for example. The reason these apps are bloated is because too much attention is paid to basic CS and not enough to engineering.

I don't understand this kind of reasoning. Why would knowing basic CS correlate with you not caring about memory, storage and CPU usage? It's really grating to be tarred with this brush that having an academic background means you don't know how to optimise or write practical code. Surely not having a basic CS background means you're not going to be great at picking the right data structures and algorithms? Coders th…

> Why would knowing basic CS correlate with you not caring about memory, storage and CPU usage?

It wouldn't necessarily, but I didn't make that claim. GP's claim was that these apps are bloated because a lack of knowledge of CS fundamentals amongst developers who write them. I pointed out that one of the biggest offenders, Facebook, has a strong bias towards hiring people with strong skills in CS fundamentals.