> I agree with his rant about "CS departments' algorithmic analysis" failing to cover these real-world hardware issue.
I disagree. CS algorithms is about the logical/mathematical understanding of algorithms. If you want to understand hardware implications, you are generally taught that in an comp architecture class. Blaming algorithms class for the lack of consideration for real world hardware issues is like blaming the computational class because the turing machine doesn't factor in hardware issues. You abstract it out to make general logical observations.
I disagree. It should at least cover what aspects should be considered when designing an algorithm for use in the real world. You dismiss the entire field of experimental algorithmics as if it were nothing more than a bunch of algorithmicists who know some computer architecture things, but there’s a lot more to it.
I’m not arguing against teaching classical algorithm design and analysis, they’re both incredibly important imho. But we should stop ignoring the shortcomings of the models used, hand-waving them away with “the rest is just a bit of engineering”. It’s not.
There are theoretical models of random-access machines with fixed-size caches, on which data structures like B-trees and others can be (and are) analysed for asymptotic performance. It's usually not taught until late undergrad or graduate level though.
(You may have heard the terms "cache aware" and "cache oblivious" used to describe algorithms. These terms come out of theoretical CS, describing algorithms with good performance on these "RAM with cache" machines when the cache size is known or unknown ahead of time, respectively.)
I disagree. CS algorithms is about the logical/mathematical understanding of algorithms. If you want to understand hardware implications, you are generally taught that in an comp architecture class. Blaming algorithms class for the lack of consideration for real world hardware issues is like blaming the computational class because the turing machine doesn't factor in hardware issues. You abstract it out to make general logical observations.