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Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

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Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#21

Post by senatorobama »

rs86 wrote: post #16
foobarchu wrote: post #11

Understanding algorithmic complexity was highly useful for me recently when moving a system from inefficient prototype to full-scale version. Complexity theory helped me out with determining the exact pain points in my design and what needed to be altered how (which was most of it). Similarly, graph theory heavily influenced that initial design, which was far more elegant. When moving that system from a single-thread…

Knowing CS is extremely important. That's the difference between being a modern day factory worker and a high value expert.

How can I demonstrate knowledge of CS in my resume?

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#22

Post by godelmachine »

zamalek wrote: post #12

Graph theory, all the time. Our product basically allows users to build a whole bunch of assets (specifically, LOB wrappers, workflows and forms). These may depend on each other (e.g. a workflow displays a form, which displays data from LOB). If you want to redeploy those to a new environment in the correct order, that's a graph problem: topological sort (and you need to find cyclic dependencies, i.e. strongly-connec…

May I ask what's LOB?

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#23

Post by Multicomp »

godelmachine wrote: post #22
zamalek wrote: post #12

Graph theory, all the time. Our product basically allows users to build a whole bunch of assets (specifically, LOB wrappers, workflows and forms). These may depend on each other (e.g. a workflow displays a form, which displays data from LOB). If you want to redeploy those to a new environment in the correct order, that's a graph problem: topological sort (and you need to find cyclic dependencies, i.e. strongly-connec…

May I ask what's LOB?

Line of business (applications)?

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#24

Post by WhitneyLand »

And there’s a scary part to this. How much more are we losing out on because of what we don’t know? Can you justify going back for a masters in CS, not simply for any career reason, but just because of the theoretical power it could add to the foundation of your ability to solve problems and approach a broader set of them?

I find myself agreeing with most of the commenters here. Even for simple things like algorithmic complexity, I’ve watched colleagues choose data structures and algorithms with no regard for simple attributes that would make a big difference as soon as code gets out of the toy stage.

Why is it so hard to appreciate the importance of this?

The idea of seeing a doctor who never went to medical school would send us running scared. Hiring a developer with no formal computer science training? No problem, they’re smart, they’ll just pick it up as they go.

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#25

Post by mr_overalls »

godelmachine wrote: post #22
zamalek wrote: post #12

Graph theory, all the time. Our product basically allows users to build a whole bunch of assets (specifically, LOB wrappers, workflows and forms). These may depend on each other (e.g. a workflow displays a form, which displays data from LOB). If you want to redeploy those to a new environment in the correct order, that's a graph problem: topological sort (and you need to find cyclic dependencies, i.e. strongly-connec…

May I ask what's LOB?

I'm guessing Large OBject - a data type commonly found in databases that stores a large chunk of unstructured/semistructured data. Usually a large chunk of text (CLOB) or binary data (BLOB).

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#26

Post by _8j50 »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #24

And there’s a scary part to this. How much more are we losing out on because of what we don’t know? Can you justify going back for a masters in CS, not simply for any career reason, but just because of the theoretical power it could add to the foundation of your ability to solve problems and approach a broader set of them? I find myself agreeing with most of the commenters here. Even for simple things like algorithmi…

Is the job a trade or a profession? People who see the job as a trade don't care about formal training.

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#27

Post by Fej »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #24

And there’s a scary part to this. How much more are we losing out on because of what we don’t know? Can you justify going back for a masters in CS, not simply for any career reason, but just because of the theoretical power it could add to the foundation of your ability to solve problems and approach a broader set of them? I find myself agreeing with most of the commenters here. Even for simple things like algorithmi…

Would you mind giving a couple examples? (Other than complexity, I suppose.)

Still learning.

Re: Ask HN: What are useful CS theories you actually use at work?

#30

Post by AdamM12 »

kd5bjo wrote: post #5

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Morgan's_laws are incredibly useful when trying to analyze or simplify conditionals.

I always found this to be really interesting despite it being rather simple. Definitely got some mild satisfaction simplifying IF statements. Professionally haven't used it too much (explicitly) given 99% of branches use at most 2 conditions. Likely use it this upcoming semester for DSP w/ FPGAs.
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