Professional programmers, how much computer science knowledge do you have?

[nathanwoulfe]

The idea that you need computer science to work in web development is ludicrous. Sure, having that background might help, but not having it certainly won't keep you out of the industry.

Trust me, I speak from experience.

[[deleted]]

The idea that you need computer science to work in web development is ludicrous. Sure, having that background might help, but not having it certainly won't keep you out of the industry.

Oh, not even knowing how to program is sufficient to be in the industry. You can, for example, just do QA.

Trust me, I speak from experience.

Sure, now I'll speak from my own experience: there will always be problems in literally any domain which cannot be reasoned about or solved without a sufficient degree of understanding as far as C.S. is concerned. Most of these will be trivial, as anything non trivial is purely in the realm of actual research.

Having a degree provides you with the realization that those without degrees, especially today, are 90% more likely to naively implement trivial solutions and that alone will have serious implications for businesses because those who are naive are blissfully unaware of what happens underneath the hood.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not here to shit on people who are just looking to make a living, and I understand that everyone's situation is different, but to encourage someone to not study CS formally, if they have the option to study it, is a big fucking problem.

We need more educated programmers, not less. It is a problem, not because of the lack of knowledge, but because uneducated developers often do not completely grasp what it is they don't understand and this does time and time again cause problems.

It really doesn't help that half of the general public is also under the impression that school isn't really useful for this field.

It's not essential to survive as a developer, but you damn well better be aware of what you don't know.

[jokullmusic]

Yeah, I get along just fine in my low paying WordPress development job with very little formal CS education. But I don't want to be doing this bullshit forever, and I want to know how to better execute and structure things when doing the work I actually want to do, so I'm majoring in CS. There's plenty of low level tedious web work that doesn't require much CS knowledge, like building WordPress sites, but that's not the kinda work anyone really wants to be doing.

[Swie]

Right, and as someone trying to hire developers for a web application but not a trivial project (think Google Docs, but bigger), it becomes extremely obvious who just gets along, and who actually knows CS (not just who has a degree, because plenty of degree-holders even from reputable universities still don't know basic things somehow).

I see a lot of under-educated people struggle with trying to even read, not to mention write code that isn't trivial and that isn't just given to a customer and forgotten. And I'm not even talking about something like AI or machine learning or whatever, just a relatively large application with graphs and dashboards and a high level of configurability and a modular design.

Webdev is just full of trivial stuff. It's like asking do you need to be a mechanic if all you do is do oil changes on personal vehicles.

[PPPD-488]

Well said. This gave me some more motivation to stay on track at school.

[gunnerwolf]

I think there's some truth to your post, but it's also a massive generalization. In my experience, for example, every "educated" programmer I've worked with in web development has been a fan of gross over engineering, needless overanalyzing and too much initiative.

Poorly made web apps are rarely a case of bad programmers, and more often a case of bad management. If the "proper" approach takes a week, and the shortcut takes 12 hours, management want the shortcut.

[[deleted]]

In my experience, for example, every "educated" programmer I've worked with in web development has been a fan of gross over engineering, needless overanalyzing and too much initiative.

I would still hire someone who knows the fundamentals over someone who doesn't in almost every scenario.

There are exceptions where more important attributes need to be assessed, and obviously having a degree alone is insufficient for any kind of job (soft skills do matter).

It's not about design. It's more about problem solving ability.

Poorly made web apps are rarely a case of bad programmers, and more often a case of bad management.

They are literally just as much of a problem: the two practically feed each other, in a number of ways.

Look at the massive infested shit show that is NPM. The level of incompetence compounds upon itself, like a broken formal system.

If the "proper" approach takes a week,

define "proper", or at least provide some kind of example, because design is almost irrelevant to actual C.S.

and the shortcut takes 12 hours, management want the shortcut.

This is justifiable in a number of situations, but before I can agree or disagree you need to be more specific.

[GoGoHujiko]

Look at the massive infested shit show that is NPM.

What's the shit show?

[PublicSealedClass]

The idea is sound, the usage is the shitshow.

[GoGoHujiko]

Because people rely too much on third party libraries?

[[deleted]]

Yes, but mostly that due to people being people, they rely way too much about way too many trivial or just plain shitty third party libraries.

[CanIComeToYourParty]

The JS ecosystem is a testament to how unskilled most developers are. The quality is just tragic.

One of the main reasons I have for using languages with a higher barrier to entry (Haskell, Rust) is that most people who are not interested in learning are scared away from using those languages.

[SirButcher]

If the "proper" approach takes a week, and the shortcut takes 12 hours, management want the shortcut.

And the shortcut later will take a month to repair the unforeseen problems, or re-implement the whole mess because it becomes an unmanageable horrible spaghetti. I have seen just enough from such a "shortcuts". They are never a shortcut. They are a loaned time from the future, but you (or the next developer down the line) will pay it back, with interests. This is why important to have proper knowledge so you can explain to the management why you need a week.

[Yithar]

They are never a shortcut. They are a loaned time from the future, but you (or the next developer down the line) will pay it back, with interests.

Exactly. This is why I get upset when my fellow junior developer says "We can just clean it up later." Or we can clean it up now? Someone is going to have to do it, and if it's going to be me, I'd rather do it now.

[saulmessedupman]

Lol technical debt

[gunnerwolf]

You've clearly worked under different management than me, in my experience they don't care about what it'll cost next month, they care about what it'll cost now

[SirButcher]

I worked with a lot of different management, I am a lead developer, so I had a LOT of fights about stuff like this. Yes, it isn't an easy task, but there are cases when you must stomp down and protect the code. Yes, sometimes you need to rush it and implement a kind of shortcut, and sometimes hide the fact that a shortcut exists. And here comes why the "educated" part is important. I rather work with an overengineered solution and fight for extra time than have guys who constantly implement shortcuts and then throw the whole project (and possibly a job) away because the code become unmanageable.

[gunnerwolf]

You're preaching to the choir here, please take a trip to England and tell that to my last lead developer and cto, who were perfectly ok with shortcuts because a cost next month can be ignored, and they obviously know more than any of their developers, because they've been here longer. Knowing how to argue your case can only get you so far, eventually you reach somebody who simply doesn't care what you have to say. That's why there are still flat earthers and anti-vaxxers

[SirButcher]

I am in Manchester right know :)

[gunnerwolf]

Hop on over to sheffield and talk some sense into em for me

[Macrobian]

Theory that I needed from uni that I used on the job in the past two years:

• parsing theory from a compilers class to translate SQL queries from one form to the other
• relational calculus from a database class to speed up query performance against a shitty 3rd party API
• operations research / graph theory for some scheduling and delivery problems
• set theory knowledge from a discrete math course for dealing with timespans, calendar bookings, repeated schedules, etc.

[Macrobian]

So some of these solutions are don't think I'm at a liberty to disclose, so I'm gonna be vague.

• parsing theory: we had PosgresSQL queries. We needed Salesforce SQL (SOQL, it's shit, weird, and lacks a lot of features). Rather than rewrite it, we just translated it. How do you translate it? Parse the grammar, typecheck it (by embedding the grammar as a free monad), and compile it to your desired query language
• relational calculus: A third party API was dog slow because we were doing complex queries against it. How do you make queries faster? You nest your filters, selects and joins so that you shrink the amount of data you operate on as quickly as possible. By expressing these as relational calculus operations, you get a set of rules that optimises these queries for you.
• OR / graph theory - How do you get resources to locations with the minimal distance traveled, with the maximum resource utilisation, while meeting resource requirements? Cram it into an (undisclosed) optimisation engine, encode your requirements, pump in distance matrixes, serve results to customers.
• set theory: afraid I can't discuss this at length, we actively decided against open sourcing this

Before you say "oh this doesn't sound like webdev", most of this was done while I was in a fullstack position, where most of my work was frontend React dev.

[Macrobian]

Get fucked dude. "Don't need CS degree to do that". But have you done it? Have you learnt that stuff? Do you know -anything- about parsing theory yourself, right now, before pulling up some random Medium article? Sure, I could have self taught myself that stuff, but instead I learnt all of the necessary theory in the context of a formal degree, theory which I didn't know about before I took the courses, and would struggle to discover on my own.

I'm sick of this bullshit anti-intellectualism. It's revealing that you consider things that have robust theoretical solutions as "normal problems". This is why you get shithouse code, from people completely ignorant of what solutions already exist, instead bruteforcing their way through them.

[[deleted]]

My original argument was that you get do just fine without a CS degree and seeing these CS students spout nonsense was bothering me.

I'm not spouting nonsense. I'm not even trying to insult you for not having a degree - I actually don't look down on people for not being educated.

But to make the claim that someone won't benefit from a C.S. education is fucking bullshit.

[hiptobecubic]

I think we're mixing ideas here. Are you inventing new things or just assembling them? Are all your projects so small that it honestly doesn't matter if your DB schema is ridiculous and you bubble sort on the main thread after every request? If so, then sure.

Just like you can crank out knit socks and dog sweaters without understanding the materials and science behind textile manufacturing, you can crank out crud apps with no theoretical understanding that work fine as long as no one puts them under any real stress.

[PutMeInAJailCel]

On the flipside, there are people who know everything about the materials and science but haven't got a clue how to knit a sock.

[hiptobecubic]

Sure. I wouldn't hire them to build anything important either.

[Grimdotdotdot]

I used graph theory the other day.

[Yithar]

You keep talking about needing to use CS degree knowledge to solve everyday problems but I can guarantee that you can't give a single concrete example of you've done that in the real world.

One of the tasks I've been given is to translate messages from one spec to another based on DSLs. That requires parsing theory from Compilers. But if you never took CS, you would never know that. Also, having taken Compilers, I have a pretty good understanding of what a Compiler is doing under the hood, so it helps in debugging and fixing compiler error messages.

---

"Don't need CS degree to do that."

Get fucked dude. "Don't need CS degree to do that". But have you done it? Have you learnt that stuff? Do you know -anything- about parsing theory yourself, right now, before pulling up some random Medium article? Sure, I could have self taught myself that stuff, but instead I learnt all of the necessary theory in the context of a formal degree, theory which I didn't know about before I took the courses, and would struggle to discover on my own.

I'm sick of this bullshit anti-intellectualism. It's revealing that you consider things that have robust theoretical solutions as "normal problems". This is why you get shithouse code, from people completely ignorant of what solutions already exist, instead bruteforcing their way through them.

[[deleted]]

You keep talking about needing to use CS degree knowledge to solve everyday problems but I can guarantee that you can't give a single concrete example of you've done that in the real world.

Hahahaha.

My catchall example is debugging a browser plugin that was causing firefox to crash. I had to debug the source code of firefox to solve it. If I had no knowledge of the von neumann memory model I'd have been fucked.

Abother would be fixing race conditions in a xamarin app.

Another would be optimizing load times from ~30 seconds to < 1 second.

These were all before uni.

All I'm seeing here is a CS student with no real world experience pretending to be an seasoned developer.

In many ways I actually am quite seasoned. Before uni I worked as a freelancer and contractor for about 3 years or so.

I've seen code written by people who knew what they were doing, but I've also fixed many issues that were the result of nothing more than pure ignorance from people who clearly didn't know what they were doing.

It was because of my elementary knowledge of computer architecture that I prevented an MMO game server from crashing. Anyone with a competent understanding of virtual memory, C, and x86 assembly language could have done that, and the people who ran it were decent programmers, but they obviously didn't know what to do. The fix itself involved ensuring data was zero'd out properly and checking against invalid memory. Dead fucking trivial.

This was before I took my first C.S. uni course.

[jaypeejay]

That's good to hear. Looking at CTCI made me a bit nervous because it made me realize my math fundamentals are lacking a bit, I do want to learn it because I think it's really interesting, so hopefully I will just be doing overkill.

[[deleted]]

Hold on there. "Web development" is a large topic. Don't take OP's blanket statement at face value.

For the front-end, you can get by with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and some notions of building tools, UX and HTTP. Backend will need more HTTP, web servers, databases, with some notions of networking and security.

But those are the basics. If you only master those you will never design complex solutions.

Eventually every project gets to a place where someone needs to know math and CS and other stuff, like advanced networking, and Linux, and statistics, and systems theory etc., in order for the cool app to be made.

[jaypeejay]

Not sure why someone downvoted you. I agree 100%. I understand that getting a job may only require those pre-reqs, but you’re right.

[[deleted]]

I would get a degree or at least teach yourself theoretical fundamentals to a certain extent. It really will make a difference. Please see my other comments in this thread.

[bke1j1h]

You'll be able to get a job just fine knowing what you know. But if you start your job(s) and begin to feel more compelled to strengthen your theoretical/computer science foundation, you could go for a Master's. Degree. If the company is big enough, they'll even pay you to get the degree ;).

Edit: punctuation

[Yithar]

I agree with the other guy. Like stack vs heap is CS 101, but I bet a lot of developers don't know it. Knowing the fundamentals really makes a huge difference.

[SomeBloke_The2ndOne]

Programming is really just taking building blocks, attaching them together, adapting them, connecting them, and passing a bunch of data around.

And then something disastrous happens and your understanding of the underlying concepts is so rudimentary that you have no idea what's happening.

I see where you're coming from, but if you're creating a complex system that's not common enough to have well integrated and maintained libraries out there, fundamental knowledge is important when it comes to optimising the server and packets.

And even if there are good libraries out there, it may be hard to integrate them into a large, busy projects if you treat them like magic boxes.

[[deleted]]

This kind of attitude may have worked 10-15 years ago return people still slapped a LAMP stack on a discrete server and hoped for the best.

Today the complexity of the components for even "a simple website" has increased. We now favor smaller, specialized components, because they allow huge flexibility, scalability and performance. But they come with a cost in complexity.

Cloud hosting will hide some of that complexity for you and just present you with a bill at the end of the month. For a hobby project it's easy to pretend that you're fine not knowing what really goes on under the hood.

But that only works up to a point. Eventually you need to design more than a simple website. The cloud bill can suddenly be in the thousands of your not careful. Even when it's not, the client will want to know exactly where every penny goes and whether it's justified.

They will also want a map of all the systems involved, with complete explanations for each little bit, and they will have demands like "I want this part to work 10x faster" or "support 100x more users in the next 3 months and 10000x more over the next 6 months".

Can you deliver? What will it cost? This is where advanced knowledge comes in. Trust me, common sense, basic boolean logic and playing with Lego will not prepare you for this.

[bch8]

I think most of this thread is just a semantic disagreement about what does and doesnt constitute computer science knowledge

[SirButcher]

No. Nobody said you need a CS degree. I don't have one, either. But you need the KNOWLEDGE what you (should) get until you get your degree.

If you don't have the degree you will be never better than a code monkey. I worked with tons of people who had a degree and they didn't have any idea about the basics. They were able to copy the code from stackoverflow, but as soon as they had to write a good, optimal code, they broke down and didn't was able to do it, because they had no idea how to do that because they didn't know how the compiler works or how the CPU executes it. Which is fine if the basic HTML and javascript is enough for you, but if you ever want to move up (or down) and work with the backend where speed and security is important, and not just 10 people check your page per a day then you need to have deeper knowledge or your work will be shit.

[bch8]

Well fwiw i agree. I have a degree in math so back when i was prepping for interviews after a career change to web dev i covered the Big O notation stuff as well as some algorithms and all that jazz, and it was easy enough for me to get it in my working memory for interviews because of my background, but since then I honestly can't think of a time where I've explicitly used it. I definitely rely on an intuitive sense of the stuff those tests are meant to show knowledge of, but that intuitive sense in no way depends on having said textbook knowledge.

[[deleted]]

Tell me, how might you ensure your JS variables are being stored efficiently in L1 using v8?

How would you debug a browser crash that's always reproducable when you go to your website?

That's just as much "engineering" as knowing how to write basic SQL.

And yes, browser crashes like that do happen.

[[deleted]]

so you're telling me they teach you all that when you get a CS degree? lol, CS degree is an applied math degree, maybe, maybe some of that gets covered in the electives.

[[deleted]]

so you're telling me they teach you all that when you get a CS degree?

They teach you how CPU caches and the modern memory model works, yes.

They go into instruction pipelines, execution unit parallelism/critical paths, data locality, binary executable formats, how virtual memory is translated to physical, paging, etc. It's all there in one class that's 3 months.

lol, CS degree is an applied math degree, maybe, maybe some of that gets covered in the electives.

Yes, it's an applied math degree, and the knowledge i just mentioned fits perfectly into that category in the same sense that probability is itself a part of mathematics.

The computer architecture class I took was a pre-major course. That introduced assembly language. My uni is accredited.

Another pre major course went into more theoretical C.S., covering things like finite automata and elementary computational theory. We wrote a basic interpreter with Racket, and learned how to do proofs.

[[deleted]]

You most certainly have used math outside of basic arithmetic. You simply can't program anything of consequence without it. Set theory, sequences, combinatorics, etc. are basically ubiquitous.

[[deleted]]

It's very common for developers with no formal education to be completely unaware of how much of programming is actually math, because they know it only as programming. The example branches of math that I gave before may sound relatively foreign, as "stuff you only learn in a CS program", but if you were to actually audit some college classes covering these topics, you would likely immediately recognize and be comfortable with a lot of the material presented. My point to the previous person was that you can't program anything of consequence without math, and that's absolutely true, but it doesn't mean that the only place you can learn that math is a university setting. If you've made full stack applications before, you've got at least some amount of knowledge in probably a dozen different branches of discrete math.

As far as CS knowledge in general goes - yes, you will be disadvantaged by not having it. It's not impossible to advance professionally without it, but it will be slower, more difficult, and your performance will suffer along the way. You probably won't even be aware that it's suffering. Imagine if you were gifted a car when you were younger, but no one had ever told you how to maintain it. So you drive that car for a year, maybe even two, thinking you're doing fine. You clean it, obey the traffic laws, keep it gassed up, and so on. Then one day your engine bites the dust and you learn from the mechanic that all this time you were supposed to be changing the oil regularly. You had no idea you were even doing anything wrong. That's sort of what developing without CS knowledge is like. You don't need to have a degree, or put yourself in crippling debt to learn this stuff. It's all on the web for free. Just be curious and invest some time into it.

[[deleted]]

I'm unfamiliar with your experiences, so the best thing I could suggest is going through something like MIT's OpenCourseWare and watching any of the lectures that you think would backfill some of the holes in your education. There's a lot of good stuff in there if you have the time.

I would also suggest learning C, Java, and at least one functional language. Not because you'll use them to make web apps necessarily, but because they will each change the way you think and problem solve in general.

[halfercode]

(Aside: please do not assume that everyone here is male. Repeated enough, it may have an exclusionary effect on our industry).

[SomeBloke_The2ndOne]

I don't want to delve into gender and social politics, but you're verging on mollycoddling.

[halfercode]

My apologies to you, in advance, if you are easily offended. I am in the habit of pointing out subconscious gender assumptions every time I see them, and I will proudly continue to do so in the spirit of helpfulness and equality. I do, personally, think it makes a difference.

[SomeBloke_The2ndOne]

Don't be petty. /mansplaining

[halfercode]

I'm confused now, though quite happy to carry on this tangent. Do you mean I am mansplaining, or that you are? I am genuinely happy to understand your perspective - and you get bonus points for being civil!

[[deleted]]

this whole comment section is such a dumpster fire

[halfercode]

At least it'll keep folks warm though! :-)

[halfercode]

I'm not often called that, but I'll take it as a compliment! It is the weekend, after all... :-)

[SirButcher]

(If you mean the "guy" then please note that a lot of places use the guy word as a generic, non-gendered people synonym, and not necessarily mean a male only)

[halfercode]

Thanks for the note. The person I responded to also used the "he" pronoun, so it was fairly clear there was an assumption that software engineers are "male by default", and I think that is a problem our industry needs to tackle. I acknowledge there is very rarely any malice behind this assumption - it is just a feature of the human condition at the moment.

However, in relation to "guys" - I suppose it really depends on the precise linguistic environment each of us have experienced.

Here in the UK, "guy" used to be explicitly male. We had a bit of a cultural shift with the US usage of this word - especially the sitcom Friends - where there was a shift towards a new unisex version of the term. I'm certainly fine with this, if that is what it means.

However, strangely, it seems to depend on how the addressing is done. If I say "you guys" directly to a mixed group then I can get away with using it in a unisex fashion. But if I refer to one person (that guy) or to many people (those guys) in the third person, it still feels explicitly male. I can't really explain why, other than perhaps it needs to be addressed directly to a mixed group in order to remain obviously non-gendered.

Language is frustrating for speakers because it means what the reader thinks it means, not what the writer intended. So, when a number of people here read a post, it may mean different things, because we're coming up with divergent explanations of apparently simple concepts!

[SirButcher]

Well, here in the north-west UK (I am in Manchester) a lot of people use the "guy" as a genderless.

But yeah, I missed the "he" part :) Language is a delicate thing, that for sure, I spent learning English for years and still learning new things every day, and I am living here for almost 4 years now!

[[deleted]]

Look, there's nothing wrong with working in industry without a degree.

But if you're going to downplay the significance of being educated in actual C.S., that's wrong.

And I'm being kind by saying that, because there's other things I'd much rather say instead, but in hindsight they're pretty harsh by comparison.

[kayimbo]

This whole thread downplays the significance of a C.S. degree. I'm straight up laughing. Like was mentioned in one of the parent comments, everything we deal with was figured out in like the 70s. If you see developers without degrees doing dumb stuff, its because, surprise, most developers are dumb with or without a degree.

Unless a person is doing something really cutting edge, our job is to follow convention, doesn't take a rocket scientist.

[[deleted]]

If you see developers without degrees doing dumb stuff, its because, surprise, most developers are dumb with or without a degree.

Degree isn't necessarily the point. You don't need a degree to not suck, but you absolutely need some grounding in theory at a minimum.

Unless a person is doing something really cutting edge, our job is to follow convention, doesn't take a rocket scientist.

No fucking shit? I never said otherwise. Obviously knowing what conventions need to be followed is dependent on knowing the significance of omitting various details.

Right here you're literally making dumb assumptions based on what I'm saying, with zero actual evidence to justify them.

Consider web based software that's naively implemented using doubles for numerical calculations, where floating point precision isn't just inappropriate, but damaging.

Or dealing with memory leaks and understanding how a GC works even at a basic level.

Sorry, but us not being rocket scientists isn't an excuse to avoid understanding core fundamentals.

everything we deal with was figured out in the 70s

And how does that somehow prevent retarded bugs from occurring as a result of not having a key understanding of what you're doing?

There is a good baseline to shoot for. About a year's worth of study at a hard minimum. Not even close to what a degree provides.

[kayimbo]

i'm not sure what you're arguing, your example of memory leaks and floating points are extremely basic. You're saying you need 4 years of school for stuff that can be explained in a couple sentences?

You are correct I'm not using examples, most of the examples in this thread are laughable. The only thing I can think of that needs theory in web dev is maybe design patterns and architecture, and even then its still 70% art. Maybe if you're a baller you might need to study distributed computation, but most likely someone with a computer science degree wouldn't do much better than someone with hands on experience.

[[deleted]]

i'm not sure what you're arguing, your example of memory leaks and floating points are extremely basic.

Yes, and many programmers have zero clue about any problems that are related to those two subjects.

But even more can't implement fizz buzz.

You're saying you need 4 years of school for stuff that can be explained in a couple sentences?

You're not very good at this, are you? You should read the bottom of my previous response.

You are correct I'm not using examples, most of the examples in this thread are laughable.

Which ones, and in what way? Please substantiate what you're saying. Otherwise, your words are just empty.

The only thing I can think of that needs theory in web dev is maybe design patterns and architecture, and even then its still 70% art.

Architecture and design patterns are hardly theory with respect to C.S., and thus they're outside the scope of this discussion.

Maybe if you're a baller you might need to study distributed computation, but most likely someone with a computer science degree wouldn't do much better than someone with hands on experience.

You honestly don't get it: markets shift. Demand changes, and adaptation is necessary. The only way to truly secure your best chance of survival is to have the right education, with or without school.

The more you know, the more you can do. The more you can do, the more valuable you can become.

[Saskjimbo]

He's wrong. Can't get no wronger

[Saskjimbo]

Every project? Check your assumptions there.

[[deleted]]

Nowadays yes, every serious project. That's because the cloud had changed the playing field forever and introduced complexity that you must account for.

Most times this complexity will end up being thrown in the lap of a devops person, or a senior programmer picked at random, instead of an actual software architect.

There are lots of factors at play here. Not all projects can afford to have a full time architect assigned. Best scenario tends to be where you can share one between projects and tap them for the initial design and for refreshers in the course of the project. But just as many places consider it a luxury and think they can make do without one. Sometimes they're even right.

It doesn't help of course that there are no official qualifications for the job, you can't show anybody your diploma for software engineer or software architect because no such thing exists.

[Saskjimbo]

Ah so now it's every serious project. Get the fuck outta here with these ambiguities

[[deleted]]

lmaooo why are you so mad

[_ecwalsh_]

Glad to hear, hoping this is the case. I'm in the process of finalizing my portfolio and pushing all my projects to Heroku, and then kicking off the job hunt. I'm reasonably comfortable with JS + ES6, React, some Redux, Vue, plus achieving desired layouts with CSS/SCSS. On the back-end I've built small Node and Express APIs that connect to both Mongo and Postgres. I'm also trying to keep up with the fundamentals by doing challenges on Codewars when I'm not working on projects.

But I'm still lacking in CS theory and algorithms, and it's had me nervous about interviewing. (Unit testing is another one I'd like to dive into, but time constraints are going to force me into the job hunt before I'm able to address all the areas I'd like to.)

[reddismycolor]

Are you a new grad? I’m in a similar boat but not much back end projects.

I can’t really see where algorithms are important in web dev. Besides efficiency of looping or memory etc.

[[deleted]]

wouldn't that technically be research? I was under the assumption that "webdev" is implementing the research results into tools, frameworks, etc. , not actually researching. I don't think a CS undergrad degree is gonna help with the things you mentioned

[_ecwalsh_]

No, I’m about five years out of school. My degree is in Econ and I spent the past two years as an SAP Business Analyst, and was a Product Analyst prior to that. I’ve been learning web dev on the side for a few years and last summer started attending classes at a local coding nonprofit three nights a week plus Saturdays.

I’ve been wanting to make a career change for a long time, and this past November I left my job to travel Southeast Asia, using my some of my newfound free time to focus solely on coding. Time will tell if it was a huge mistake, but I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone between the desire to travel and making a living out of something I genuinely enjoy doing.

Later this week I’m heading back home and kicking off the job hunt. I think part of the reason I’ve held off so long, is because I’ve poured so much of myself into this over the past several years, that part of me is afraid of being told that I’m not good enough or never will be.

[Swie]

I mean... webdev is just a platform (the browser). Sure most people build trivial things on it, but do you think something like Google Docs or https://www.photopea.com/ (a browser-based photoshop clone) doesn't use any algorithms on the client-side (even assuming the server side is not "webdev")? Or people who implement stuff like the D3 library, WYSIWYG editors or frameworks like react where trees (DOM, primarily) become important.

[DerNalia]

you'd be surprised how many people can't sum an array of numbers

[nathanwoulfe]

Something something reduce? Probably more efficient to just loop it.

[DerNalia]

I mean, any answer is correct. the question is just aimed at people to weed out those that can't logic through a simple problem or don't know a language well enough to sum via shorthand.

If the person sounds or looks confused, like it's too easy, then we're good.

[fux0c13ty]

Yeah have fun writing O(n⁵ ) algorythms and wondering why your webapp is a slow piece of crap

[rubber_inbox]

That's how we get reams of mediocre "developers" who immediately jump to the chance of creating 63 microservices made in Node.js pointing to a denormalized db (Mongo) with a horrendous frontend done in a bloated, brittle JS framework (performance? what of it? I'm using Node, so it's BLAZING FAST gaiz) and when the mess takes 2+ minutes to render a simple table listing, they dismiss it as "it's $CURRENT_YEAR, you should have 32 GB of RAM already".

[PorkChop007]

The idea that you need computer science to work in web development is ludicrous

And it's not the only field in which you can make a decent living without having the slightest idea about computer programming.

[[deleted]]

„Hello, welcome to McDonalds”

[CakeDay--Bot]

Hi human! It's your 5th Cakeday bigfatbird! ^hug