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Yeah, but think about what you're saying: the dichotomy you're drawing here between "essential" knowledge and "helpful" knowledge is precisely that between the skills of a merely adequate developer and a great hacker.

Sure, an IT wonk can churn out working software. But they'll never aspire to build the world's next great startup. Have some standards, man. You can't be a true hacker if you're cutting corners like this. :)




I disagree. Building a startup is about having an idea and implementing it, not about B+ trees.

If knowing obscure details of data structures made you rich, I would be rich :)




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