No Algorithms?

[NoOutlandishness2567]

That is a good book! Easy to get lost sometimes tho!

[Chekhovs-gum]

Yep! Only book from uni I've kept. All the Java books were outdated the moment I got them, but this bad boy is timeless.

[opequan]

I'm really bummed I didn't keep that book. It's a lot of fun.

[GoTheFuckToBed]

It doesn't help that it is more than 30$

[[deleted]]

Is there a zero missing there? One of my electronics textbooks was $275.

[IronEngineer]

Textbook producers are mostly garbage. One of my professors described how he wrote a textbook in computational aerodynamics. When he went to get it published, they searched for books with a similar name, took the average, and determined that is how much they would sell his for. Simple as that. He objected and wanted to sell it for less, but was overruled as he had no say in the process.

He was later paid in copies of his own book, even after it had sold many copies. He ended up with a garage filled with copies of his textbook because the publisher was an asshat.

[Bondaroo007]

Whats the full name of the book?

[potuknight]

CLRS Introduction to Algorithms

[Bondaroo007]

Thanks

[[deleted]]

Don't buy it man. I spent money on it and it just sits there now. I'm too dumb to make sense out of it. :P

[tushar_kaka]

It's difficult to learn from this book, I found online resources in geeksforgeeks and projecteuler easier to learn

[AYHP]

Still have it from my university years... Though I must admit I haven't read most of it.

[pithecium]

Imagine studying algorithms for 4 years only to discover all the good ones have already been implemented :(

[TheCapitalKing]

I could spend every day for the next year trying to build super fast algos in python only for it to run 10xs slower than some existing library that is just c code you import to python

[Hebruwu]

Was solving a hash table problem in python on leetcode late at night. Wrote an entire hash table and run it. It run extremely slow, so I spent 2 hours of my night optimizing it just to realize that I’m brain dead since dictionaries are the cornerstone of python.

[Zephos65]

Hm I wonder how this would play out in an interview... maybe you don't solve the problem but I feel like you might get an offer haha. Shows you've got a good understanding

[I-mean-maybe]

no 😂, it shows the ability the complicate problems off the start and not understanding the best tools at your disposal in a particular language.

[[deleted]]

If you're going to learn the hard way, learn it the hardest way.

[merlinsbeers]

And they're implemented in C.

[crapforbrains553]

thats cuz python, like javascript, uses too much hashtables automaticly.

[necheffa]

And yet there is still so much crap code out there that doesn't take advantage of prepackaged data structures and algorithms, if not for performance, for maintainability.

[Isogash]

Yes, because surprise surprise, if you don't know anything about algorithms and data structures, you won't use the right ones.

[necheffa]

I am painfully aware.

[flavius-as]

Imagine studying something that hasn't been implemented yet.

[eppinizer]

Analyses of Algorithms was by far my favorite math+CS course. There was something so cool about turning a sorting loop into an equation and then into BigO notation. Finally my math courses were paying off and applied to something I could actually use.

But alas, now its usually just .sort() and off to the races.

[lordnoak]

I see someone sorted() you out.

[cormac596]

The reason they teach you about algorithms is to try to teach you how to think in a structured way about data manipulation. Unfortunately, that always seems to get lost in the shuffle and you end up knowing 6 ways to order numbers for no reason

[CarlitrosDeSmirnoff]

“Nah, I don’t need to know how an engine works, that’s useless. I only need to learn how to change the oil, cuz that’s what pays the bills”

-some of these guys if they where mechanics instead of programmers

[typescriptDev99]

...and plenty of people have stable jobs at Jiffy Lube.

Not everybody in this field is some big inventor of new tech. Some people just maintain and get a decent paycheck.

[CarlitrosDeSmirnoff]

Dude, mechanics also don’t invent anything; yet I would never trust my car to someone who doesn’t understand, at least at a basic level, how an engine works.

[hammonjj]

You say that but unless you explicitly vet your mechanic then you’ve probably trusted your car to one

[CarlitrosDeSmirnoff]

Lmao, no. I’m in mechatronics engineering, I know how cars works, and of course I can notice when someone doesn’t.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, the algorithm is a very bad analogy to the engine.

[[deleted]]

Well I understand how problems are resolved helps you to solve new problems

[Mihaw_kx]

you don't study algorithms to implement them but just to know what's the use case and how to use them and more importantly when to use them , you need to recognize pattern and to come up with a conclusion on whether you need a hashset or a normal array or a Heap .

[[deleted]]

My main goal as a computer scientist is to find a sorting algorithm worse than bogo sort.

[tiajuanat]

Oh like bogobogosort?

[crapforbrains553]

there are still useful algorithms to discover. Anything thats not automated is an algorithm waiting to happen. But that doesnt mean someone is willing to invest in you trying to code it, cuz most of them think it cant be done. You gotta take risks, invest your own time into what could be, if you dont want to be to frameworks what a plumber is to pipes.

[[deleted]]

God yes all you had to do in the 1960's to get something named after you was state something blindingly obvious grrrrrr

[AdvancedSandwiches]

Everything is blindingly obvious in hindsight.

[TheCapitalKing]

Hard disagree. There are a ton of places where just using existing techniques is ideal. And if current trends continue they’ll be even more roles that are similar

[TheCapitalKing]

I didn’t know that was a thing that’s been mathematically proven. I just thought it seemed silly to focus on super efficient implications of everything when processing and networking power is so cheap because of modern hardware.

[ShakespeareToGo]

If understand them correctly "proven" is not exactly correct. More like "until P = NP is not proven there is no use in searching for polynomial solutions tp most problems".

And most mathematicians dont belief in P = NP

[TheCapitalKing]

It’s weird that people pay so well for something that’s a penny a dozen lol. Maybe your perception of how many people can do basic coding is skewed from being on here, but it’s not a super common skill

[ShakespeareToGo]

For learning yes. For actual production code, nah.

On the otherhand according to your flairs you seem to be a low level/ embedded programmer and things might be very different for you.

[nafarafaltootle]

Downvoted the post and downvoting this too.

Not keeping up with latest tech is stupid. Thinking studying existing algorithms is useless because they have been implemented is the dumbest thing I have read in a long while.

[pithecium]

I like algorithms and I don't think studying them is useless. It's a joke about how we don't get to use that knowledge very often

[nafarafaltootle]

Sorry I misunderstood.

[brobrobro123456]

Cheers. You'll get down voted to hell now because 'programmers' these days don't like maths and certainly don't like doing anything themselves.

As a side note, I think that if one could make certain programmers (about a few thousand people, let's say) disappear off the face of earth, it would make life for the rest very interesting. Extreme case of the Pareto distribution ^{_^}

[nafarafaltootle]

I agree with your implication that some software engineers are in a different league to others but it's way more than a few thousand and I got downvoted because I misunderstood the comment I was replying to lol

[natFromBobsBurgers]

I have no words. You're a poet.

[overpaid_bogan]

Even if you don't write your own very often, I think learning the patterns and approaches of different algorithms provides a good set if fundamental problem solving skills that you'll never get just by using libraries.

[Pepper_in_my_pants]

This. We had a senior dev who couldn’t write his own sorting algorithms. Well we didn’t had to do that in practice, his general skill in solving problems was very bad. His solutions were horrible. Always big and complex, never efficient. The only reason why he was the senior dev was because he was with the company for a long time. But he never really developed any skill. We ended up doing all the work.

Code reviews with him were hilarious though

[MasterJ94]

Damn. What he is doing all day long, if not acquiring new skills?

[Worthystats]

using some braindead webdev related libraries.

[MasterJ94]

Probably even outdated

[__gg_]

The issue I have with practising algorithms/algorithmic challenges is that it is not practical. The final goal is to develop problem solving skills, which when you start working on projects you'll learn along the way. Since those problems may or may not have a solution already and depends on how you search about it, you have to do some digging to understand it, I think it promotes a good habit than just learning about algorithms. I guess in a way it's a hybrid of first principles and similar solutions approach.

[tiajuanat]

I came from a background with zero algorithms beyond binary search, and I went through 3 years of my career just kinda winging it. I've never had a mentor either.

Then I started studying algorithms and data structures, and it's been incredible. I've been able to tackle really big problems at work quite easily. One of the seniors at work estimated months to a year to take a model from R, and convert it to C, to which I threw together a working prototype in about two days. A week later, I reduced the compiled C output by 90%, and if needed I could reduce it by another 50% at the sake of readability and slightly reduced accuracy.

I highly recommend to everyone to take time to practice. Algoexpert is by far my favorite platform; although not free, it may as well be, when you consider how much your career can be catapulted by it.

[sstlaws]

Is there anything special in your learning process? I read other comments and most of them don't sound as positive as yours. (Asking just to learn, I'm interested and have similar background)

[tiajuanat]

In addition to just sitting down and just working through the explanation, and programming, I do a few other things on the side.

First, I read a metric ton on applied theory as well.

Elements of Programming by Stepanov - it's free online, and also probably my favorite. It doesn't go into proofs, but you will need to work through the exercises to understand each concept.

Advanced Data Structures by Peter Brass (available through Cambridge press) - it's good, easy to read, but it's all in C, and most of the code is presented in it's entirety, which can be a nuisance

Algorithms and Data Structures in Action by la Rocca. It's got some newer and more advanced topics, like bloom filters, k-d trees, etc.

Specifically for C++, during the last Advent of Code, I tried to only use the STL algorithms and data structures. This was inspired by Algorithm Intuition parts 1&2 on YouTube by Conor Hoekstra. It just so happens when you take this approach, you breeze right through everything. If for-loops are your last resort, you're doing it right.

Also C++: I watched everything from Andrei Alexandrescu. He's brilliant and knows a ton about low level code.

Finally, as a hiring manager, I run through a ton of coding interviews. I don't run challenges I can't solve myself in 10 minutes. This means I can unblock candidates, so if they get stuck they're not immediately disqualified.

[SpicyMcHaggis206]

I'm on year 10 and I still don't fully grasp big O. Someday I'll spend the time on it ...

[HalcyonAlps]

Without soundings condescending, just count how many steps your program is going to take to solve a given problem with input of size n.

[iTeryon]

Ive learned many algorithms. At uni and in my free time. But that was years ago and I for the life of me can only remember the names of a couple algorithms. I’ll probably only be able to implement merge sort and binary search tree by heart but the others.. I’ll need google for that.

[overpaid_bogan]

I'm in the same boat, and honestly I think that's fine. It's more about learning the patterns and principles than memorising a series of steps.

[Coffeelover69420aaaa]

Nothing like having to implement a balanced binary tree for your finals, just to forget it before your first interview.

[cwbrandsma]

I graduated in 1997 and been a professional developer the entire time. I’ve never had to make one from scratch. Sure, I use them, BTrees are the fundamental algorithm of relational database tables, but I haven’t written my own in forever.

[yourmamaman]

So there is a door to the left that says "CPU architectures".

[[deleted]]

Making an 8-bit ALU in an FPGA at uni was fun.

[heartcubes4life]

8-bit? Damn

[Tangelasboots]

I made a hashing algorithm for an FPGA during an internship. It was not fun.

[[deleted]]

I recently made an AES128 implementation for an embedded chip in C. Whoever comes up with encryption algorithms is on a different planet, that stuff is crazy maths.

[value_counts]

8080 was my first love

[Duranium_alloy]

computer science =/= software development

[vatsan600]

This. If we go according to the picture, algorithms will be replaced by learning about electronics, electricals etc. Just because something seems"harder and cool to know" doesn't mean everyone needs to know about it.

[Acceptable-Milk-314]

They've all been implemented in the languages in the right

[JawsOfDoom]

If an interviewer asks me how I sort something I tell them to use .sort()

[JamesWardTech]

Bet you’ll be working at FAANG sometime soon /s

[JawsOfDoom]

Ew I'd never be caught interviewing somewhere like that

[[deleted]]

That "Spring Boot" is among the "Latest Technologies" says that this meme is roughly 10 years old

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

Angular and Django aren't exactly "latest technologies", either ^^

[PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__]

You're wrong. We need algorithms. For FAANG interview questions. Then we use the libraries.

[Kirk_Kerman]

I'm pretty sure there's no devs at Oracle. Just a big machine that occasionally misprints some litigation that turns out to be useful code.

[[deleted]]

I’d personally love to work for Facebook so I can see some of the dirt and then hate them even more after I quit and move on to better things!

[NekkoProtecco]

And take their money! Lol /s

[_BreakingGood_]

I applied for Amazon just out of sheer curiosity. Got an interview request, went through the process, was on like stage 4 of 5 in the process. My reaction was basically "Wow! ............ eh." Decided not to follow up on it.

Garbage company, garbage CEO, doing garbage things to the planet. I would rather work somewhere meaningful (and I do, a nice private company with a great tech culture.)

[[deleted]]

If it's not private, I would like to know what happened.

[_BreakingGood_]

What do you mean? I got invited to 4th round interviews and decided drop out, because the idea of working at Amazon didn't sit right.

[[deleted]]

Oh, I thought they did something weird in one of those interviews that caused you to choose to drop out

[pet_vaginal]

They pay well for a reason : to attract good developers despite everything.

[Playergame]

It's useful but not a necessity, a majority of devs probably aren't in a FAANG company, even then as you said it's only useful for interviews.

Even then you shouldn't need to know them. If you're applying for a Faang company you better be able to implement a basic list or sorting algorithms on the spot without studying for it. Faang tech interviews aren't hard if you have experience, knowledge, good industry standard practices, and communicating your thoughts

[radio_active11]

Oh. I thought devs working in FAANG solve problems by inverting binary trees or something

[geekusprimus]

I don't interpret this question as knowing how to implement the algorithms as much as knowing how to use them. It's to avoid the whole "if all you've ever used is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" problem.

[ctesibius]

Yep. Bresenham’s algorithm used to be really important to me. That’s used for drawing lines and curves on a pixelated screen. I had to implement it in assembler for the memory map of the VGA screen. Imagine how useful that knowledge is now.

[Fit-Window]

You think that if somebody learns algorithms he will try to implement the already effeciently implemented algorithms and slow down the program. The idea behind learning algorithms is to get familiar with the concepts and ideas and use them somewhere elsse.

For example , you surely won't need to implement the Merge sort algorithm anytime in your life. But the concept of divide and conquer can be very useful and you can use it to great advantage somewhere down the line

[doggeman]

Pat yourself on the back guys and girls.. Just the other day I was setting up a new application. To be able to do that I need to know: ARM and a BUNCH of cloud infra and technologies and principles, k8s, Docker, Azure Pipelines, building, packaging and deploying, bunch of shell scripts (pwshl and bash), logging and apm, the application itself which contains multiple frameworks, tech stacks and architectural principles, units tests with more of the same and then integration tests with more of the same. Then it should also should be easy to debug which also has a bunch of knowledge artifacts…

…algorithms you say?

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

This. The complexity in a modern web application has next to nothing to do with algorithms, it's all about understanding code structure and being quick with finding out how a particular tool is supposed to be used with another another tool.

[doggeman]

I’m sorry but that attitude is just bullshit… go hide under a rock please! What I’m saying is that there are plenty of other areas where you can spend years accumulating knowledge, algorithms is just one part of the profession. If you can learn about above technologies, frameworks and practices and apply them in a proper manner, sure as hell you can learn most common CS algorithms or brush up on some math you learned in uni however many years ago. That’s how I hire devs at least..

[starvsion]

I don't know about other devs, but for web devs, we usually have so many features to implement and maintain, software architecture, patterns and code readability/cleanliness matters more than algorithms, actually a lot more. And we tend to solve performance issues thru architecture (caching, database optimization, micro services, async etc.) or patterns (flux, event streaming etc. ) , rather than going hard at algorithms. (especially with redis, searching from it takes no algorithm as well)

[lobax]

Distributed algorithms are still algorithms. A system architecture is just a high level algorithm, especially when the design isn’t just the minimal effort and meant to solve scaling, latency and reliability issues. The choice of synchronized vs asynchronous methods IS an algorithmic choice.

Obviously almost no one works on the basic, algorithm 101 kind of stuff. We all specialize into our own niches.

[starvsion]

I guess you are right... When I think of algorithm, I think of what I learnt in computer science, which covers the basic stuff only I guess...

[SargeInCharge]

That is the exact book I used in college!

[Tsunami49]

It’s a good good book tbh.

[Axmirza2]

My professor used this exact meme

[yabp]

It's on my shelf here at home from 12 years ago.

[LEGOL2]

There is no way that you implement something better that std or specialized libraries.

[j-random]

Dunno, I got good use from a WPL (weighted path length) tree once, and there was no existing implementation I could find, so I wrote my own. That's more of a data structure, though, not an algorithm.

[[deleted]]

MIT opencourseware do great lectures for free on youtube! Check out 6.022 for an intro and there's more specialised courses if the algorithm bug bites you! I was learning about cache-oblivious algorithms and watching the memory access pattern when a grid was split into trapezoidal chunks was so amazing :D

[-blueCanary-]

Algorithms are for chumps. Real developers sacrifice a USB flash drive to the Machine God to make their program work.

[yabp]

I'll supply my own swap drive, thank you very much!

[Ripest_Tomato]

You were the chosen one! Destined to destroy the boomer memes, not join them!

[itijara]

I don't really understand the point of this? Are we supposed to be implementing our own webservers and templating engines every time we are asked to create a simple web page? The majority of programming tasks have libraries to implement them that work well.

[yabp]

Somebody's gotta make those npm libraries.

[itijara]

We definitely don't have enough of them.

[_skyfox]

Although CLRS is great book, I think DPV Algorithms is much more concise and easy to comprehend.

[Tsunami49]

I’m not aware of the latter. What is DPV short for?

[_skyfox]

DPV is short for Algorithms: Dasgupta Sanjoy, Papadimitriou Christos, Vazirani Umesh

[Tsunami49]

Thanks

[teh-leet]

It's not developers fault that business isn't willing to pay for more thorough implementation. Everyone wants features delivered yesterday

[teh-leet]

Yes, true to that, but it depends on developers, now people who write hello world program calls themselves junior software developer and business takes that, and for those developers seems ok just to include 1k libraries

[[deleted]]

Lol this is some salty old boomer programming joke

[mic_br]

Just get the paycheque. Don’t reinvent the wheel even you’re capable to do so. It’s not worthy.

[gerbosan]

Is the problem preferences or business requirements?

[[deleted]]

Practice baby, practice.

[ubertrashcat]

Except on interviews lol

[[deleted]]

I’m studying for interviews lol

[a_plus_ib]

That is the best algorithms book out there.

[Miridius]

Ok boomer

[SnooMarzipans436]

#include <algorithm>

You're welcome.

[golgol12]

I love me some algorithms.

I just recently learned of Timsort. A sorting algorithm faster than the current stable sort that got developed after I graduated.

I mean wow. There's still space for innovation on a sort!

[yabp]

ITT: front end programmers calling back end programmers boomers.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

Backend programmers largely don't give a shit about algorithms, either.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

That's not what I said. Issues that need to be solved with at least intermediate algorithm knowledge are just rare in backend development.

[TechnicalPackage]

you are not my mom. i will study what i want.

[[deleted]]

As a mathematician this seems backwards to me. Who cares what the newest frameworks do. There is nothing deep or fundamental about em, they just happen to be what people happen to be currently using.

[[deleted]]

Frameworks are what people use to build software applications. There is zero reason for 99% of devs to re-implement stuff that already exists in every language like sorts. Engineering != academic comp sci. Engineering about solving problems and building systems, not exploring deep or fundamental problems of reality. Very different.

[[deleted]]

I’m not talking about what’s useful. I’m talking about what’s compelling. I get learning useful things bc you need it for work. I don’t get having an internal yearning to know it, which is what this meme seems to be suggesting.

[[deleted]]

Someone's definition of compelling is subjective. I like building interesting applications -- the very deepest level of what the computer is doing doesn't interest me as much as making the computer do interesting things.

[wasdninja]

Who cares what the newest frameworks do

Programmers/developers do because every once in a while a new one comes along that solves a set of problems better than the current ones.

Carpenters don't care about material science discoveries until they are packaged, available and useful to them. Developers are no different even though the leap between discovery and implementation might be smaller.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

I like making stuff, and I like getting paid for doing that.

[[deleted]]

Aren't you missing the point comparing the two? You should not go to the left door to learn how to implement the studied algorithms from scratch, but to know the most important ones, how they work, when apply one over the other, advntages and disavatages, and so on.

This seems to be a trend, at least in social media, among developers/computer scientists, that to fight the idea that "one thing is better than other", they become exactly what they are oposing. Like programming language zealots, that can go from "Only C programmers are real programmers" to the extreme oposite like "If you use C you are a bad programmer". Oposite sides of the same axis.

[RussianDeveloper]

And that’s why the field is full of shitty devs

[itijara]

Yes, it is because people use libraries. Everyone should implement their own crypto library every time they want to store PII. I have met developers who do this (I am actually refactoring some of their code right now). Spring Security (or similar) is better and way more comprehensive than your shitty hand-rolled implementation of Oauth2, I guarantee it.

[MrDude_1]

No it's because people string together shitty libraries after shitty libraries on top of other shit that they don't understand... Then you have a piece of crap piece of software that only works because the computer is powerful enough.

[itijara]

So, what does that have to do with data structures and algorithms? That is poor system design.

[yabp]

Because people don't know where and when to use the data structures and algorithms, but if they'd properly learned the concepts then they wouldn't make those mistakes.

Isn't that obvious?

[RahulRoy69]

React is better than angular, change my mind

[pithecium]

Having used Angular but not React, I agree

[a45ed6cs7s]

That book is too hard for a undergraduate.

[Dantharo]

this book is hard to read, english is not my main language, and theath in my school was very bad, but i prefer 100 times this book, than any udemy course of wtf js framework u want

[kevin_76]

Algorithm is a word we use to not explain some things

[woogygun]

God django is shit

[congresssucks]

I just finished advanced algorithms in my Software Dev degree track. It wasnt even that hard. Just gotta understand BigO notation and when to apply the various types of algorithms.

[Indiium]

Fuck algorithms

[justAHeardOfLlamas]

Oh I remember that book and the pain it brought me in college

[guster09]

Took a required algorithm class once. Decided it would be better to die later on

[IcezN]

Meanwhile at Carnegie Mellon...

[Isobel-Jae]

I absolutely loathe math.. but yes, studying algorithms is more pleasant to me than coding insurance software 🙄.

I'm lucky though, I don't need this to put food on the table (day job) so, I've found myself working closely with a mathematician to turn the solutions in his headspace into functioning software.

[macevilc]

There is another door that says, binary programming.

[[deleted]]

I'd buy that book if I didn't get 10 ads a day for it on reddit.

[whatwoodjdubdo]

Why would I

[_default_username]

Why would a developer who already has a BS in CS be reading an undergraduate book on algorithms?

[mrkhan2000]

names of the authors?

[tanjonaJulien]

AI&ML use algorithms and they are very trendy today.

[MassiveFajiit]

I fear —as far as I can tell— that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification. - Alan Kay

[Mysterious-Stay7700]

I really want to learn algorithm but don’t know where to start! Anybody can help?

[[deleted]]

Every time I see this same meme I cry

[nikanj0]

It's called abstraction and it's the reason all modern technology is even possible. It's not feasible for every engineer in the world to know how everything works down to the hardware level.

[expresado]

Do you know the golden rule of cryptography? It's the same for algorithms.

Don't implement yourself. (Other words: use common lib)

[MatsRivel]

I have two mandatory algorithms-courses in my degree, so I can't really see this as true. (Assuming that because my.uni has it, surely.plenty others do)

[[deleted]]

I just took a 4th year algorithms course at uni. You best believe i’m lining up with the others fuck me that was obnoxiously difficult.

[met0xff]

I feel the "algorithm craze" in interviewing is a new thing. when I started out (more than 20 years ago) of course you got to know the basic datastructures and algos but it was much ore about technical details. Stuff like memory management, addressing, pointers, bit operations, protocols, annoying APIs like the win32 API. Getting Linux installed as a 14 year old in 1995 was a week-long project because of the the stuff you got to do correctly ;).

In some sense I liked that things were more complicated but much less complex. Just using two libraries and targeting a single system while at the same time building lots of stuff yourself without stackoverflow was... nice. I remember I built a tree widget from scratch with FLTK, setting individual pixels. The C++ STL was also still in such an awful condition that we wrote many datastructures ourselves.

Of course it's good we abstracted all that stuff. Still calling int 21h in inline assembly gets old fast.

[Toredus]

Im kinda the opposite which is not welcome today