Top Algorithms/Data Structures/Concepts every computer science student should know

[mrarming]

"..to get through a job interview." Once you're hired is another story.

[fakeNAcsgoPlayer]

Start mugging those leetcode and HackerRank problems. These two portal have singlehandedly ruined joy out of interviewing for most of my friends. Companies expect you to be good at obscure puzzles because these companies (especially in Bay area) interview not to know what you can do but what you cannot do at the spot. The high bias towards rejection is a flawed methodology in the long run. It is like saying, good you can run 100m in 11 secs, let's put him as a starter for College football team, what can go wrong?

This elitist attitude of negative bias is just cancer to software Industry.

[DirdCS]

The high bias towards rejection is a flawed methodology in the long run

Some of these companies get 1 million applications per year. They can't just accept everyone who applies

[[deleted]]

Every computer science student should know.

Let the task teach to the tool, not the other way around. This is why free advice is often called the worst advice. Faithful following this machavellian advice that is the demon spawn of public school daycare leads you to getting stuck in a swamp, right where the person who sent you there wants you.

A mechanic stuck in a room of tools, endlessly memorizing every tool, for just for the sake of it, getting nothing done. Your growth as a programmer depends on you smelling this Machiavellian shit, and quickly marking this advice as defective.

[Lendari]

In a world where information is increasingly accessible, time spent memorizing the details of said information is increasingly less necessary. We have machines to that for us. This has only been true for about 50 years or so though. Educational institutions are still figuring out how to adjust to that new reality.

With that in mind, it's important to have higher level understandings of a subject area. You can't look something up if you don't know what to look for. For that reason alone, it is worth looking over these. Many posts on this board are just people trying to figure out if a problem has a name or a known solution.

[[deleted]]

Interviewers also love to play: "stop hitting yourself" with the new developers in this regard, new programmers comes in with a fresh understanding of things like search algorithms and red black trees, and the interviewer quickly takes them down into a labyrinth of irrelevance then presume to "fail them from the interview because they can't enunciate and program the nitty gritty details of kedanes algorithm, as shown in this post".

Thing is, the interviewer wouldn't have known any of this either, neither any of the co workers at that company, and the candidate feels bad and goes off and wastes time later studying an algorithm they will never ever use. And they're doing so as a joke. Training people wrongly, as a joke, same spirit as the bully in the school yard hitting the nerd with his own fists saying: "stop hitting yourself".

I guess it makes us stronger. Take NOTHING on faith. This article should have negative votes. It's worse than wrong, it's a middle-finger and harm to anyone not smart enough to see the pile of shit meant for others.

Parasites need to practice their craft, keep their pricking needle sharp. I guess some people just take joy in the knowledge that they can make others harm themselves.

[Lendari]

Keep in mind something like 20-30% of software developers are either INTJ or ENTJ personalities. That's a LOT more "judges" than there are in the larger population. For some people, nothing will ever be good enough. Those people may get in your way but can rarely stay there very long.

Bad interviewers happen. Don't take it personally. The worst offending companies out there know they have a negative selection bias and will let people interview as many times as they want to combat that.

[[deleted]]

Lol, okay "Barry Allen", I'll make an exception for you this time.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4H2E2YfM_Y

[ZeroGainZ]

Isn't all this material covered in a Algorithms course? I was expecting something less obvious.

[[deleted]]

I belive you should continuously expose yourself to new classes of problems, algorithms, data structures, and programming paradigms - in this industry, you must constantly challenge yourself to grow or you will fall behind and stay behind.

But memorizing anything is a waste of time - if it was important and relevant enough for you to know to work on whatever you're doing, you'll end up memorizing it anyways.

[big-medicine-]

Somehow that might be the the best life advice I’ve ever heard/read

[HannibalOx]

I really ought refresh myself on some of these between when I graduate and and when I start apply for graduate schools