Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#91

Post by jen20 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

fma wrote: post #52

beltsazar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in most universities it's a Computer Science degree, not a Software Engineering degree. I suppose in those universities that offer SE degree, they have more courses focusing on programming and managing software projects.

I had a class titled "Software Engineering" that prepared me very well for software dev life cycle, maintenance etc... It was a semester long project where the professor was the "business" person and everyone had shared roles (someone was QA for a sprint)...and we get lectures on code quality, testing, best practices. To my surprise it doesn't exist in every college. Even though I went to a state school, not all stat…

> I would interview kids nowadays who want $100k but have no idea what Agile is.

You’d be amazed at how many middle managers making 250+ think that agile equals scrum or that scrum is valuable in the context of software. I’ll take the person that has never heard of it, to be honest.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#92

Post by barrysteve » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

ahati wrote: post #88

Forgetting fundamentals is not normal, at least that is what I thought. Responses in this post is changing my perception. No wonder, recruiting is hard. I have found a knowlge of OS, computer organizaton, digital logic, networking, compiler design are crucial. If you are into datascience or ML, math is absolutely essential. I don't know why so many people think forgetting fundamental is normal.

When you're up in the tree branches, it's easy to forget what the roots look like.

You're right though, we should hang on to the fundamentals to make adapting to new tech easier.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#93

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

ahati wrote: post #88

Forgetting fundamentals is not normal, at least that is what I thought. Responses in this post is changing my perception. No wonder, recruiting is hard. I have found a knowlge of OS, computer organizaton, digital logic, networking, compiler design are crucial. If you are into datascience or ML, math is absolutely essential. I don't know why so many people think forgetting fundamental is normal.

Because most of the 2.7 million developers in the US are “Dark Matter Developers” writing yet another CRUD app.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#94

Post by Mezzie » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

fjfbsufhdvfy wrote: post #83

DennisP wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to see database normalization in OP's list. Working at a modest-size company, database normalization was something I dealt with all the time. It was up to the devs to do table design, if you didn't normalize you'd end up with a mess.

I've never seen someone even mention the word normalization when working with databases, but the knowledge is useful to intuitively design more sensible tables. Perhaps many people don't realize they are doing it?

I know I didn't until I took a database class in grad school. (I'd worked with databases before and was taught them as a kid by my dad, but I needed some kind of 'proof' for CV purposes). I didn't call it 'normalization', I just considered it to be part of future-proofing/not wanting to be bothered if new uses showed up.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#95

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:36 PM UTC

bsuvc wrote: post #55

oifjsidjf wrote: post #30

You should invert the question: since EVERYONE forgets all of this CS stuff then perhaps teaching this CS stuff to us programmers is a complete waste of our time in the 1st place? So it's not YOU who is "wrong": it's the universities who have it backwards and are disconnected from the real world work that programmers do.

An even better question is why do people go to college, expecting it to be a trade school? There is nothing wrong with CS curriculum. It's just not for everybody. This is like going to college for Physics and then complaining that they didn't teach you how to fly an airplane.

Because strangely enough, most people don’t spend tens of thousands of dollars to be a better citizen of the world. Most people have an insatiable addiction to food and shelter and need to be able to trade labor for money to support that addiction.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#96

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

dilyevsky wrote: post #77

oifjsidjf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People go to universities to learn how to tackle real world programming problems. But then the universities teach them CS bullshit where 90% of it is unapplicable to the real world. Why would you go to such an university which is so disconnected from the real world?

I maybe in minority here but I regularly use CS, networking, OS internals statistics, discrete math (I could go own) knowledge I was taught in school and I work in infrastructure. Ofc if you let that knowledge falter and forget all this stuff you’re never gonna use it bc you won’t even know when it was useful

I still don’t understand the disconnect that many posters on HN have from the real world. Most of the 2.7 million developers in the US are working at banks, insurance companies, etc writing boring line of business CRUD apps.

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#97

Post by enumjorge » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

ahati wrote: post #88

Forgetting fundamentals is not normal, at least that is what I thought. Responses in this post is changing my perception. No wonder, recruiting is hard. I have found a knowlge of OS, computer organizaton, digital logic, networking, compiler design are crucial. If you are into datascience or ML, math is absolutely essential. I don't know why so many people think forgetting fundamental is normal.

Not sure why people are surprised that others can have different experiences than they do. Sounds like your job requires knowledge of those fundamentals. Not every job is like that. If you’re writing an Android app or crud web service I’d say you’re likely not having to apply knowledge of compiler design.

It’s pretty normal for people to forget knowledge they’re not using. Do you remember the physics, chemistry, etc fundamentals that you learned in high school/college if you haven’t been using them?

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#98

Post by dilyevsky » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #96

dilyevsky wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maybe in minority here but I regularly use CS, networking, OS internals statistics, discrete math (I could go own) knowledge I was taught in school and I work in infrastructure. Ofc if you let that knowledge falter and forget all this stuff you’re never gonna use it bc you won’t even know when it was useful

I still don’t understand the disconnect that many posters on HN have from the real world. Most of the 2.7 million developers in the US are working at banks, insurance companies, etc writing boring line of business CRUD apps.

Maybe you should try EnterpriseNews then ;)

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#99

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #18

aiscapehumanity wrote: post #2

I've heard programming != Comp sci, so perhaps it's not a bad thing.

As a CS prof of mine once said, studying CS to be a programmer is like studying architecture to be a house builder...

Yes and that’s why he is a professor.

“Its hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”

Re: Ask HN: Working as a software engineer for 5 years, I've forgotten all CS stuff

#100

Post by arinlen » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

ahati wrote: post #88

Forgetting fundamentals is not normal, at least that is what I thought. Responses in this post is changing my perception. No wonder, recruiting is hard. I have found a knowlge of OS, computer organizaton, digital logic, networking, compiler design are crucial. If you are into datascience or ML, math is absolutely essential. I don't know why so many people think forgetting fundamental is normal.

> I don't know why so many people think forgetting fundamental is normal.

Because it is normal.

The notion that you recall everything from a random class you took some semester years ago, and that it won't ever leave your memory, is not realistic nor grounded on reality.

Furthermore, "fundamentals" don't mean the same for all people. Most developers will go through their entire career without implementing a single data structure or write a single pet OS or put together a single parser. They will however have to handle OO programming and software architecture and concurrent programming.

I guess that the definition of "fundamentals" is tied to what you need to do to perform on your every day life, and that's why absurd things like interviewing candidates based on data structures and ask stuff like what's placement new in C++ is a complete waste of time and effort to assess how a candidate will perform.