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A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

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Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#131

Post by bfung »

mdoms wrote: post #41
vbtemp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reflects a common meme that can often be summarized as: "Real World" work doesn't involve the academic nonsense you learn in school. Many of the people who say this kind of stuff never really mastered the theory, and because they never mastered it they can't really use it, and because they can't really use it they find work that doesn't strictly require it, and then conclude it's useless... It's like whe…

Can you give some examples of where computer science academic theory helped in software engineering?

Relevant comment from a few days ago about Linus Torvald’s code handling of linked lists and the theory behind it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25327683

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#132

Post by nitrogen »

google234123 wrote: post #74
mcguire wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you may find your career limited to fixing (simple!) bugs, tweaking UIs, and adding small features.

That;s a sad career.

It's a career path that maximizes people helped rather than personal intellectual enjoyment.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#133

Post by hertzrat »

caymanjim wrote: post #6

This isn't a bad list of topics about data structures, algorithms, and software fundamentals, but let's not pretend that computer science has anything to do with most software engineering roles. I studied computer science, and in 30 years, I've hardly used any of it. There were a few jobs where some of the statistics and math were helpful, but in my long career, I've seen very little overlap between computer science…

It pays off in interviews to drill that stuff. If you want to be good at your job though, you just need to write a lot of code and understand design and architecture. The best book on this I read recently was “game programming patterns.” Ive had cause to use about a third of the patterns in the book in the last year alone, and my code base got simpler and easier to modify each time. Big payoff. Don’t read it start to finish though, use it as a resource for when you get stuck

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#134

Post by catwind7 »

MivLives wrote: post #91
milksteak42 wrote: post #10

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."[1] These coding challenges used to be a very good measure of ability, but now applicants are just memorizing the most common problems for each company. We're not at the point where these tests are useless but we will get there in the near future. The problem is that I haven't seen any good alternatives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_l…

The best coding challenge I had to do was when the company basically gave me a set of requirements, said build this. Took about an hour. Then during the interview, I was asked about my decisions, and blockers. Afterwards I was given another feature to add. This took another half an hour. I wish more companies would do this. The hardest part for me at least is staring at a blank document.

different companies need different skills and it changes even as a company grows. Part of the frustration about this entire process is that it feels very cookie cutter and sort of like a lowest-common-denominator type effort on behalf of companies.

Huge companies like google are for the most part hiring people they can slot into almost any team in the org so it makes sense for them to place less emphasis on tooling expertise. They have plenty of time and money to upskill employees.

The same can't be said for the vast majority of consumer start ups that really just need people who can rapidly prototype.

Of course those groups are not mutually exclusive, I just think it's sad that everyone has adopted the approach that works for a select few companies

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#135

Post by giantDinosaur »

nitrogen wrote: post #132
google234123 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That;s a sad career.

It's a career path that maximizes people helped rather than personal intellectual enjoyment.

I've done that kind of thing. It did not help many people, and I came to despise everything about my life. Give me some intellectual enjoyment and I'll be much more motivated to help people.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#136

Post by macksd »

caymanjim wrote: post #6

This isn't a bad list of topics about data structures, algorithms, and software fundamentals, but let's not pretend that computer science has anything to do with most software engineering roles. I studied computer science, and in 30 years, I've hardly used any of it. There were a few jobs where some of the statistics and math were helpful, but in my long career, I've seen very little overlap between computer science…

My degree was actually called Information Technology and I will say that it has proved to be a really good degree for me. It was essentially a CS minor with some different classes on networking, security, system administration, hardware, project management, etc. I would say I'm better off career-wise because I did that instead of Computer Science. I was even almost not considered for a job because of it, and I turned out to be a really good fit for that job!

That said, and admittedly I have gravitated to niches that might be more computer science-y niches at points in their hype cycles where lots of research was being applied, but I have occasionally wished I perhaps also had a stronger academic basis in computer science. In distributed systems, people are still writing new schedulers, and I wish I had taken that operating systems class when you had to write one. I don't always understand what my colleagues are talking about with some of the newer functional programming features popping up in languages. Stuff like that.

I do agree there's a disconnect between what universities deliver and what people expect of them (paths into academic research vs. career preparation) and I think a Bachelor's degree is overhyped for that. But I do think you're understating the role of CS theory and fundamentals in high-level software engineering. Just because you don't use many of the lessons does not mean they haven't improved your ability to think, and the general base of knowledge on which you're able to build.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#137

Post by konjin »

vbtemp wrote: post #35
caymanjim wrote: post #6

This isn't a bad list of topics about data structures, algorithms, and software fundamentals, but let's not pretend that computer science has anything to do with most software engineering roles. I studied computer science, and in 30 years, I've hardly used any of it. There were a few jobs where some of the statistics and math were helpful, but in my long career, I've seen very little overlap between computer science…

Your comment reflects a common meme that can often be summarized as: "Real World" work doesn't involve the academic nonsense you learn in school. Many of the people who say this kind of stuff never really mastered the theory, and because they never mastered it they can't really use it, and because they can't really use it they find work that doesn't strictly require it, and then conclude it's useless... It's like whe…

I enjoy CompSci as a distraction - my background is pure maths/mathematical physics so don't think I don't appreciate abstract nonsense - but using it daily is impossible without a lot of contortions.

Contortions I can do easily mind you, but other than recursive functions and linked lists any more complex data structures are too fragile to survive the harsh world of constantly changing business requirements.

As a younger developer I wrote a beautiful algebra that described the company hierarchy for giving permission levels to people from active directory. Within a week I needed to scrap that and redo it from scratch because people needed permissions in the specific app that had nothing to do with their job position.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#138

Post by munificent »

caymanjim wrote: post #6

This isn't a bad list of topics about data structures, algorithms, and software fundamentals, but let's not pretend that computer science has anything to do with most software engineering roles. I studied computer science, and in 30 years, I've hardly used any of it. There were a few jobs where some of the statistics and math were helpful, but in my long career, I've seen very little overlap between computer science…

> I studied computer science, and in 30 years, I've hardly used any of it.

Here's one way to look at it: I wear my seatbelt every time I ride in a car, but I haven't been in a serious accident in over twenty years. Does that mean I shouldn't have bothered?

Knowing things allows you to take an opportunity when it presents itself. It's really hard to know what opportunities are going to show up or which doors will be the doors that you want to walk through. But having more of those doors open is generally a good thing.

Of course, there is an opportunity cost to the time spent learning CS versus other stuff you could be learning. But, personally, I've found the CS stuff I've learned to be both personally rewarding and often helpful to my career in unexpected ways.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#139

Post by ipnon »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #122
ipnon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Unix was cutting edge OS theory and gave birth to the microcomputer industry. 2. AWS was cutting edge distributed systems theory and gave birth to cloud computing. 3. Renaissance Technology was cutting edge algorithms theory and gave birth to quantitative hedge funds. Some people innovate for a living.

Unix was cutting edge OS theory? I mean, it was Bell Labs, and they were probably the premiere research facility in the world at the time, but my impression is that the trick on Unix was how small they were able to squeeze it, not that it was pushing theoretical boundaries. Can you point me to any aspects of Unix that were theoretically new?

What we take for granted today was once brand new and hard won.

Re: A computer science study plan to become a software engineer

#140

Post by dgb23 »

dkarl wrote: post #95
CraigJPerry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CompSci theory hasn't helped me with the complexity of the industry i work in. It hasn't helped me when i've misunderstood something in our domain. It hasn't helped me release / distribute a product easier or faster or cheaper. It hasn't helped me navigate team dynamics or how to work effectively with others. It hasn't helped me write better technical texts. So for some very specific cases, in my career (and i suspec…

Maybe it's easy to overlook these things when you have a really deep computer science background, but coming to software engineering from a non-CS background (math degree) I found lots of valuable knowledge in CS. The most important parts for me would be: - State machines. I run into a lot of state machines, especially incompletely specified ones. Not that everybody gets these wrong if they haven't studied state mach…

I also don't have a CS degree and am self-taught. And I very much agree with you that many CS concepts have quite a practical impact. Some of them more on the side of approach and selecting the right tech/solution, but some have a more hands-on practical use.

- State machines: completely agree. I use them especially in the context of user facing stuff, like GUIs, animations and so on. In fact I would even argue that they are _inherent_: Even if you don't recognize and specifically structure your code around them, they are still _there_ just smeared all over your logic.

- A&D I find ubiquitous are: sets, graphs, trees. Sets especially are underused and graphs are the most expressive data structures if you need them and can help you model complex, long lasting models.

- Relational algebra is likely one of the most important concepts. It is fundamental to the Swiss army knife of databases: SQL.

- Algorithmic complexity: I rarely use this formally, but it really helps to get a decent intuition for performance.

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