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this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Maybe it’s like teaching kids the quadratic equation; where it’s less about learning the thing and more about understanding how to problem solve and use logic.
In this case maybe the point is to show an understanding of algorithms and that you can explain them out loud.
If it were a question about the tradeoffs of different sort algorithms and how they might apply to a given problem, I would agree. That's not what these interview questions are about.
Maybe it’s about being able to communicate an algorithm verbally. Unless these are written interviews, then yeah, probably pointless.
Also, I do think being able to understand how an algorithm works is probably important on its own.
Then give them some code and tell them to explain it. Having testees regurgitate algorithm implementations from memory is just testing rote memory.
I thought we had all lived through terrible public schools that just tested memory, and resolved to do better.
Yeah, it's a solved problem. I'm going to call the library's default sort and move on. If it somehow is a problem, I'll revisit later.
Now, optimizing database calls, fixing (and avoiding!) security holes, writing tests that don't take forever to run, writing functions so they can be easily re-used later, and not duplicating code. Now there are some skills!
"It's faster if we make a duplicate of this function and change this section, then we can move onto other things"
"No it's much slower, because your code review just came back telling you to throw that idea in the garbage and do it right"
There's a lot of ways to test communication skills. This doesn't seem like a very good one.