Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Can say so for myself. Have been hitting LC lately for an upcoming interview and I have found I have gotten worse like considerably worse, after having grinded in college and barely touching it for 6 years. I had to look up how to implement topological sorting today for example and even then flubbed it.





Because it's somthing you never need to implement in any real-world job, unless that job is developing a library routine to do topological sorting.

I dont agree. The reason you are forced to learn DSA in college and is tested in LC is because these data structures and algorithms are everywhere.

You may claim that nobody ever will need to know about topo sort, but keep using AirFlow for your pipelines or storing and display a Sitemap tree on your website.

if you dont know the basics, you will inevitably reinvent in using substandard, inefficient data structures and buggy algorithms.


I have not thought about writing a sort or any kind of complex data structure beyond a dict or an array/list since my undergrad CS days which was almost 40 years ago. It just doesn't come up. If it does in your job, sure you need to know it. For most jobs it doesn't.

Agree. Topological sorting isn't a part of my job. A hash map might be the most complicated data structure I've used on the job. (Relatively speaking)



Consider applying for YC's Summer 2025 batch! Applications are open till May 13

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: