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Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

blog.dominikrudnik.pl

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Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#21

Post by wiseowise »

traceroute66 wrote: post #9
piokoch wrote: post #2

This is very interesting, I've been using LLM to learn new things that way and it really worked. To some extent, learning with LLM is better than taking any course, even with a tutor, as I am getting something prepared for me, in terms of my experience, progress level, etc. LLM is going to change schools and universities a lot, teachers, tutors will have to find themselves in the new reality, as they have a strong co…

> LLM is going to change schools and universities a lot, teachers, tutors will have to find themselves in the new reality, as they have a strong competitor with infinite resources and huge knowledge, patient and ready to work with every student in a distinct way, according to student's needs, level, intelligence, etc. No it won't. It really, really wont. You clearly don't have any university professors amongst your f…

> No it won't. It really, really wont. You clearly don't have any university professors amongst your friends or acquaintances.

Maybe some fancy professors in their cushy Ivy league ivory tower won't, but a lot of teachers that work for minimal salary sure will.

> Because the reality is that LLMs are nothing more than a party trick, a stats based algorithm that gives you answers within a gaussian curve.

A lot of humans can't even do that.

> Some of the students even have the audacity to challenge the professor's marking saying "but the AI said it is right" in relation to some basic math formula that the student should know how to solve with their own brain.

Students challenge professors over some stupid assumption, more news at 11.

> Trying to cheat your way through university with an LLM is a waste of the students time, a waste of the professors time and a waste of the university's infrastructure.

Who even said anything about cheating? Witch hunting too much? For majority of layman topics LLM will be a far superior offering precisely because LLMs have no ego and will reply to their best abilities instead of chastising students about, oh God forgive, HAVING AUDACITY to disagree over a topic.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#22

Post by wiseowise »

traceroute66 wrote: post #18
pcf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said: "LLM is going to change schools and universities a lot" You said: "No it won't. It really, really wont." With the explosive development of LLMs and their abilities, it seems your point of view is probably the hopeful one while the other poster has the realistic one. It seems that you simply can't say anything about what LLMs will not be able to do. Especially when you try to use current "AI slop" as your mai…

> "AI slop" as your main reason, which is being more and more eradicated. The slop is the hard truth. As I made perfectly clear in my original post. My university professor friends get handed AI slop by their students each and every day. There is no "eradication of slop" happening. If anything, it is getting worse. Trust me, my friends see the output from all the latest algorithms on their desk. The students think th…

I sure hope those "university professor friends" exist, and you're not self-distancing. Because you really need help with the mindset like that. Students are not your enemies and LLMs are not ought to get you. Seek help.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#23

Post by culopatin »

traceroute66 wrote: post #18
pcf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said: "LLM is going to change schools and universities a lot" You said: "No it won't. It really, really wont." With the explosive development of LLMs and their abilities, it seems your point of view is probably the hopeful one while the other poster has the realistic one. It seems that you simply can't say anything about what LLMs will not be able to do. Especially when you try to use current "AI slop" as your mai…

> "AI slop" as your main reason, which is being more and more eradicated. The slop is the hard truth. As I made perfectly clear in my original post. My university professor friends get handed AI slop by their students each and every day. There is no "eradication of slop" happening. If anything, it is getting worse. Trust me, my friends see the output from all the latest algorithms on their desk. The students think th…

I think you're missing the point. The conversation is not about what students give the professors, it's about how students learn. This obviously requires someone that wants to learn.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#24

Post by wiseowise »

traceroute66 wrote: post #19
pr337h4m wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call "slop" is a far better education than what 99% of children in the world receive.

> What you call "slop" is a far better education than what 99% of children in the world receive. I'm talking about university education here. Where the hell does the clutching at straws "99% of children in the world" argument come into it ?

> clutching at straws

> as if he wasn't the one who clutched at some mythical "the university"

Next you'll tell that anything below Ivy league isn't considered university and kids should've known better and used their damn head™ really hard to be born in better families to be able to get real university™ education.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#25

Post by and12-qwd »

It is kind of odd to admit this before the second round of interviews. Perhaps glorification of LLMs is now a positive, but still it is a gamble.

It is also odd that this article appears here after someone complained about vibe coding killing the interest in algorithms.

This game is played often. People have valid complaints, then someone posts a "rebuttal" ("LLMs are not bad for $X---they are good for $X").

Anyway, he uses LLMs more in the search capability, which is less controversial than generative AI and vibe coding.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#26

Post by traceroute66 »

culopatin wrote: post #23
traceroute66 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "AI slop" as your main reason, which is being more and more eradicated. The slop is the hard truth. As I made perfectly clear in my original post. My university professor friends get handed AI slop by their students each and every day. There is no "eradication of slop" happening. If anything, it is getting worse. Trust me, my friends see the output from all the latest algorithms on their desk. The students think th…

I think you're missing the point. The conversation is not about what students give the professors, it's about how students learn. This obviously requires someone that wants to learn.

> it's about how students learn. This obviously requires someone that wants to learn.

FINALLY ! Someone who gets the point I was trying to make. I wish I could upvote you a million times.

This is precisely the point. Professors are happy to help people who want to learn.

Students who prefer to copy/paste into LLMs do not want to learn. University is there to foster learning and reasoning using your own brain. An LLM helps with neither.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#28

Post by qikcik »

e12e wrote: post #10

Interesting article - but perhaps a bit light on details in some places, like: > I generated a list of the most common interview tasks How? I suppose they mean gathered, or searched for, not strictly generated? Also a little light on details of the actual interview. I'm also a little confused about the listing of "problems" - do they refer to some specific leet-code site's listing of problems? It seems like half-way…

You are right, I missed some crucial details in the blog entry. I will definitely take your feedback into account for Part 2, where I want to do a more detailed deep dive into the prompting protocols (with maybe some exact examples) and my learning strategy.

To answer your questions:

1. By "generated" I mean that I prompted the LLM incrementally to provide me the list of the next LeetCode problems to do (without the deep research/search function)

2. Yes, the problem names are the exact names from LeetCode. Initially, the LLM suggested this format, and I later forced it to stick to real LeetCode problems.

This allowed me to verify some output independently of the LLM (avoiding hallucinations), cross-check solutions with other materials, and track my progress.

Interestingly, I realized later that the LLM was mostly pulling from the standard Blind 75 problem set, and almost all the problems are from that list.

3. About the "forgotten and forbidden" code: I probably phrased it poorly in the article. As you said, this algorithmic logic is abstracted away in standard libraries and data structures. The disconnect for me (and I suspect for many "business logic" developers too) is that our daily production code rarely requires writing these fundamental structures from scratch, so we do not see the patterns that can also be applied in more high-level business logic. But this is still an in-progress hypothesis in my mind, without detailed examples.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#29

Post by qikcik »

and12-qwd wrote: post #25

It is kind of odd to admit this before the second round of interviews. Perhaps glorification of LLMs is now a positive, but still it is a gamble. It is also odd that this article appears here after someone complained about vibe coding killing the interest in algorithms. This game is played often. People have valid complaints, then someone posts a "rebuttal" ("LLMs are not bad for $X---they are good for $X"). Anyway,…

Just a quick correction: the entire recruitment process is already finished. Publishing this is a retrospective analysis of a closed chapter.

Re: Brute-forcing my algorithmic ignorance

#30

Post by autotune »

TrackerFF wrote: post #27

Note: I haven't done any tech interview in 6 years. I'm kind of surprised they still do leetcode-style questions on remote interviews these days. I thought those types of interviews would be 100% gamed by now.

They don't, at least in the SRE space. I have been interviewing for 6 months without a single coding challenge or LeetCode-type challenge. Though I would passively avoid companies that offer them, as in I would avoid them if offered, I have yet to be offered the chance to avoid it in an interview.
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