These questions are way too basic- the first 4 can be answered directly from the definition of each term, and there is no thinking involved. The 5th question can be answered with knowledge from 1 lesson in graph theory.
The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
11–20 of 208 posts
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#12While I can answer some of these questions (and could answer them all a few years ago while attending university) this kind of knowledge is simply not something that I use on a daily basis. I also doubt that many others developers use it unless they have very specialized jobs. These kind of questions should not be the only basis of the software development final exam. In software development problem solving, communic…
Yes, this is CompSci, not software engineering
Then perhaps the author shouldn't be presenting them as practical issues, and claim that people who don't know the answers either shouldn't be programmers, or work in some tiny niche. You read the context article he linked to, right?
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#13Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#14This is the interesting bit
"on each paper, at least four of the five questions relates directly to material I have needed to know during my time working on Tarsnap, "
Most software jobs are far more distant from CS that Colin's. And more power to him for working fulltime on something that leverages his knowledge. (spoken as someone who spent a decade doing glue-random-apis-together-and-bill -by-the-hour enterprise software scut work)
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I wrote in my introductory post, I have needed to know most of these things in my day-to-day job. Of course, it depends on what sort of work you're doing.
I don't need to know these things in my day-to-day job either. However, if I did need to know them, they'd be a Google search away, and I could find them out in less than a minute (less than the time it takes me to get urllib2 to send cookies, for example). On the other hand, I imagine that someone who hasn't been formally trained in complexity would have a harder time, because they wouldn't be aware of basic concept…
The difference between O(2^n) and O(3^n) isn't trivia; if you can answer the question, then you have an understanding of what big-O means. Asking someone to recite the definition they learned of O(n) is easy; asking someone to think critically about the definition of big-O and how 2^n and 3^n relate shows a deeper understanding. I haven't memorized any trivia relating to these functions, but I convinced myself within a few seconds of the answer from the definition of big-O.
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I wrote in my introductory post, I have needed to know most of these things in my day-to-day job. Of course, it depends on what sort of work you're doing.
I don't need to know these things in my day-to-day job either. However, if I did need to know them, they'd be a Google search away, and I could find them out in less than a minute (less than the time it takes me to get urllib2 to send cookies, for example). On the other hand, I imagine that someone who hasn't been formally trained in complexity would have a harder time, because they wouldn't be aware of basic concept…
asking whether someone knows what O(n) means strikes me as a better performance test than trivia like the difference between O(2^n) and O(3^n)
So far that's turning out to be one of the most useful questions, actually... but I wouldn't call it trivia.
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#17I wonder about the utility of an exam that one can ace with five minutes of googling.
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#18A little off topic but this domain hosts a hacker news daily updated archive located here: http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ Thanks cperciva for hosting it!
I've settled for http://hckrnews.com/ as the HN filtering site -- you can switch between Top 10 / Top 20 and for extreme procrastination, "Top 50%". With a Chrome extensions you can also track # of comments since you last time read them, for the stories with interesting discussions.
Re: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#19"If you can't answer the majority of the questions on these four papers, and you're working or intend to work as a software developer, you should ask yourself why — most likely you're either you're missing something you really should know, or you're lucky enough to be working within a narrow area where your deficit doesn't matter."[1]
I'm a self-taught front end web developer who didn't have a traditional computer science education. I'm looking to move into general software development, and I can't answer any of the questions on the first paper without cheating.
Can anyone recommend specific online courses or books for the four proposed papers[2] to fill the gaps in my knowledge without spending three years at Oxford?
[1]: From the original post at http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-10-08-software-developm...
[2]:
1. Algorithms and Data Structures
2. Computer Architecture and Operating Systems
3. Mathematics
4. Networking and SystemsRe: The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures
#20These questions are way too basic- the first 4 can be answered directly from the definition of each term, and there is no thinking involved. The 5th question can be answered with knowledge from 1 lesson in graph theory.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks these questions should be easy. Alas, evidence so far is that they aren't.