interviewing and job hunting is garbage

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > interviewing and job hunting is garbage

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FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

redleader posted:

i don't have a cs degree. should i just kill myself right now

try and take some cops with you first

# ? May 29, 2017 15:32

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# ? May 11, 2024 08:05

Iverron: May 13, 2012

Blinkz0rz posted:

that's kind of what i'm getting at. if you went into an interview and were like "oh i don't know any of the notation for complexity analysis but i can spot a poorly performing algorithm and refactor it with a better choice" you'd still get laughed out because interviewing had become a lovely cargo-culting fuckstorm of gotchas and it's terrible and i hate it

I mean if they can see you don't have a CS degree and expect big o answers: :redflag:

# ? May 29, 2017 15:46

MrMoo: Sep 14, 2000

Iverron posted:

I mean if they can see you don't have a CS degree and expect big o answers:

That's almost all tech companies though, at least the 30 odd so I have interviewed with in NYC and PA.

I have managed to keep in some odd niche field whereby getting things done is more important than having inefficient algorithms? Performance is not relevant for a significant chunk of IT work, Windows and the Internet have been a good enough example of that.

# ? May 29, 2017 16:27

Progressive JPEG: Feb 19, 2003

Blinkz0rz posted:

that's kind of what i'm getting at. if you went into an interview and were like "oh i don't know any of the notation for complexity analysis but i can spot a poorly performing algorithm and refactor it with a better choice" you'd still get laughed out because interviewing had become a lovely cargo-culting fuckstorm of gotchas and it's terrible and i hate it

Just look it up on wikipedia

# ? May 29, 2017 16:52

Progressive JPEG: Feb 19, 2003

redleader posted:

occasionally i see a bunch of lovely nested loops or w/e, but they're in places where it doesn't matter and gently caress if i'm going to go out my way to fix them

Ya next level past knowing algorithmic complexity is knowing when it isn't really the bottleneck and isn't worth making the code more complicated to fix

Saying this during an interview is risky tho because the interviewer often hasn't reached this level yet

# ? May 29, 2017 16:54

Workaday Wizard: Oct 23, 2009; by Pragmatica

Progressive JPEG posted:

Just look it up on wikipedia

NEVER do this

just look up some course material on some random prof.'s university page

e: as a plus you will also get outlines and study plans too

# ? May 29, 2017 17:59

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Shinku ABOOKEN posted:

NEVER do this

just look up some course material on some random prof.'s university page

e: as a plus you will also get outlines and study plans too

wikipedias red black tree article is p deece. you just have to learn to tell when a math lord wrote the article and go to another source.

# ? May 29, 2017 18:07

Progressive JPEG: Feb 19, 2003

the more under construction gifs, the more authoritative the source

# ? May 29, 2017 18:14

Progressive JPEG: Feb 19, 2003

actually ive heard that prof pages often look like 1995 geocities because they want to work well w/ screen readers and other aids

# ? May 29, 2017 18:15

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Progressive JPEG posted:

actually ive heard that prof pages often look like 1995 geocities because they want to work well w/ screen readers and other aids

yeah, ime the prettier your page looks the more it sucks for blind people. i always test my screens with a screen reader and its shocking how bad it can be if you don't specifically keep accessibility in mind while you're designing. asp.net will generate the least reader friendly poo poo ever if you let it.

# ? May 29, 2017 18:21

qirex: Feb 15, 2001

Progressive JPEG posted:

actually ive heard that prof pages often look like 1995 geocities because they want to work well w/ screen readers and other aids

making a web page accessible doesn't have to make it ugly

future career tip: if a couple possible future court cases go certain ways around ada compliance for websites there's going to be a lot of money to be made remediating crappy javascript framework sites into ones that are accessible so you might want to start learning about this stuff now because stuff like jquery has bad accessibility support

the only really hard part technically is dealing with stuff like live regions for messaging the main hard part organizationally is getting the front end to look right wrt text sizes and color contrast

# ? May 29, 2017 18:24

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

qirex posted:

making a web page accessible doesn't have to make it ugly

future career tip: if a couple possible future court cases go certain ways around ada compliance for websites there's going to be a lot of money to be made remediating crappy javascript framework sites into ones that are accessible so you might want to start learning about this stuff now because stuff like jquery has bad accessibility support

the only really hard part technically is dealing with stuff like live regions for messaging the main hard part organizationally is getting the front end to look right wrt text sizes and color contrast

yeah, i haven't encountered a framework yet that applies accessibility properties to elements or sets a logical tab ordering for accessibility mode. devs p much have to know how browser screen reader integration works and fix it all themselves.

# ? May 29, 2017 18:33

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

qirex posted:

making a web page accessible doesn't have to make it ugly

future career tip: if a couple possible future court cases go certain ways around ada compliance for websites there's going to be a lot of money to be made remediating crappy javascript framework sites into ones that are accessible so you might want to start learning about this stuff now because stuff like jquery has bad accessibility support

the only really hard part technically is dealing with stuff like live regions for messaging the main hard part organizationally is getting the front end to look right wrt text sizes and color contrast

no it doesn't but it's much harder to do both and I'd expect an academic to just focus on the accessibility because they aren't getting paid to make their syllabus page pretty. hell I wouldn't mind a proliferation of less glossy but still well laid out sites and my eyes work fine (so far)

# ? May 29, 2017 18:38

carry on then: Jul 10, 2010; by VideoGames
(and can't post for 10 years!)

there is, of course, a difference between a page that isn't a reactive js-infested mess, and one that still has a marble texture background and 10px-border tables

# ? May 29, 2017 18:42

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

cis autodrag posted:

wikipedias red black tree article is p deece. you just have to learn to tell when a math lord wrote the article and go to another source.

yeah this. if you see formulas in mathml on the first page just skip it entirely.

before interviewing I went through all of the common data structures and algorithms on Wikipedia as a refresher. it was pretty good but many of those articles would have been useless if I didn't know them already.

# ? May 29, 2017 18:45

jre: Sep 2, 2011; To the cloud ?

Iverron posted:

I mean if they can see you don't have a CS degree and expect big o answers:

Maybe they expect that you'd bother to learn this standard notation that comes up all the time in interviews ?

Blinkz0rz posted:

in my entire career i've never come upon a situation where not knowing big o notation has affected me in the slightest. the first and only times i ever hear about it are in the context of interviews.

like if you're gonna come up with some gotcha bullshit for an interview at least make it a bajillion times less "look at my swinging cs dick"

Knowing the industry standard way to express complexity is gotcha bullshit ? Why have you never put the effort in to learn it given it comes up in interviews all the time ?

redleader posted:

95%+ of the time the db handles all that "complexity" stuff for me

Going to need to see your working on how the db is handling complexity for you.

# ? May 29, 2017 19:04

Sapozhnik: Jan 2, 2005; Nap Ghost

wikipedia is usually really good at presenting surface-level treatments of things but anything to do with cs is a loving mess.

# ? May 29, 2017 19:10

jre: Sep 2, 2011; To the cloud ?

Sapozhnik posted:

wikipedia is usually really good at presenting surface-level treatments of things but anything to do with cs is a loving mess.

every cs article contributer ever posted:

Hey whats the most complex, unnecessarily formula infested, incomprehensible way I can express this simple concept.

jre fucked around with this message at 20:04 on May 29, 2017

# ? May 29, 2017 19:12

Doom Mathematic: Sep 2, 2008

jre posted:

I particularly enjoy Wikipedia's explanation of trapdoor functions.

quote:

Consider a padlock and its key. It is trivial to change the padlock from open to closed without using the key, by pushing the shackle into the lock mechanism. Opening the padlock easily, however, requires the key to be used. Here the key is the trapdoor and the padlock is the trapdoor function.

# ? May 29, 2017 19:33

Sapozhnik: Jan 2, 2005; Nap Ghost

yeah computer touchers are one big nest of dunning kruger poo poo and wikipedia articles about what they do are no exception

obviously i'm not a d-k though, it's all those other dumbfucks :smug:

# ? May 29, 2017 19:41

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

looking up an algo on Wikipedia and getting a page full of math ML is super disappointing

# ? May 29, 2017 19:54

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Iverron posted:

I mean if they can see you don't have a CS degree and expect big o answers:

if you can't manage some basic questions with answers in big O notation, get the gently caress out of the industry

do not pass go, do not collect $200, just get the gently caress out

# ? May 29, 2017 19:55

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Blinkz0rz posted:

in my entire career i've never come upon a situation where not knowing big o notation has affected me in the slightest. the first and only times i ever hear about it are in the context of interviews.

like if you're gonna come up with some gotcha bullshit for an interview at least make it a bajillion times less "look at my swinging cs dick"

this is the guy who walks around inserting O(n**n) algorithms into code

he's the rear end in a top hat you clean up after. know him. fear him. avoid hiring him.

# ? May 29, 2017 19:56

Doom Mathematic: Sep 2, 2008

Sapozhnik posted:

yeah computer touchers are one big nest of dunning kruger poo poo and wikipedia articles about what they do are no exception

Teaching is hard. Much harder than most people are willing to give teachers any credit for. People assume that knowing a subject enables you to teach it to others, which it doesn't (unless the subject is teaching). This, by the way, also explains a lot of the problems with Stack Overflow.

# ? May 29, 2017 20:00

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Iverron posted:

I mean if they can see you don't have a CS degree and expect big o answers:

you should know big O poo poo

it's probably not fair to ask you to do all that crap you'd get in an algorithms class where you're given a function and need to show the derivation of little o, theta, omega, whatever else it was

(I do not have a CS degree - this is sophomore level stuff I took as an EE)

# ? May 29, 2017 20:19

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

this is the guy who walks around inserting O(n**n) algorithms into code

he's the rear end in a top hat you clean up after. know him. fear him. avoid hiring him.

lol ok

# ? May 29, 2017 20:35

Bloody: Mar 3, 2013

big o is not difficult and i legit dont know how you could make it all the way to a programmer job without knowing it

# ? May 29, 2017 20:44

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

this is the guy who walks around inserting O(n**n) algorithms into code

he's the rear end in a top hat you clean up after. know him. fear him. avoid hiring him.

there is a different kind of rear end in a top hat you clean up after

the one the deletes O(n**n) algorithms and doesn't use a profiler

# ? May 29, 2017 20:45

jony neuemonic: Nov 13, 2009

Bloody posted:

big o is not difficult and i legit dont know how you could make it all the way to a programmer job without knowing it

i learned php, those shops have no standards.

# ? May 29, 2017 20:47

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

jony neuemonic posted:

i learned php, those shops have no standards.

yeah tbh that's the sort of place i started

e: i wasn't a cs major either so i never learned any of this stuff formally

Blinkz0rz fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 29, 2017

# ? May 29, 2017 20:59

School of How: Jul 6, 2013; quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

Its possible to write an algorithm that is O(n) but uses a lot of IO, and is still slower than an algorithm that uses a lot less IO, but is technically O(n^2). Big O only applies to algorithms that are completely CPU bound. Unfortunately so very few people who are in charge of hiring actually understand this.

# ? May 29, 2017 21:04

jony neuemonic: Nov 13, 2009

Blinkz0rz posted:

yeah tbh that's the sort of place i started

e: i wasn't a cs major either so i never learned any of this stuff formally

as gross as it sounds i don't regret it at all. i'm not writing php anymore anyway and i'm starting a cs degree this year part-time. it'll take longer than doing it full-time but i'm getting industry experience at the same time and can pay as i go.

# ? May 29, 2017 21:09

Bloody: Mar 3, 2013

School of How posted:

Its possible to write an algorithm that is O(n) but uses a lot of IO, and is still slower than an algorithm that uses a lot less IO, but is technically O(n^2). Big O only applies to algorithms that are completely CPU bound. Unfortunately so very few people who are in charge of hiring actually understand this.

that is not true at all lmao

# ? May 29, 2017 21:10

Bloody: Mar 3, 2013

like have you never heard of memory complexity im pretty sure its even mentioned on this page

# ? May 29, 2017 21:10

carry on then: Jul 10, 2010; by VideoGames
(and can't post for 10 years!)

code:

func addOne(_ num: Int) -> Int {
    sleep(UInt32.max)
    return num + 1
}

turns out O(1) is actually slow, check and mate cs losers

# ? May 29, 2017 21:15

hifi: Jul 25, 2012

hobbesmaster posted:

you should know big O poo poo

it's probably not fair to ask you to do all that crap you'd get in an algorithms class where you're given a function and need to show the derivation of little o, theta, omega, whatever else it was

(I do not have a CS degree - this is sophomore level stuff I took as an EE)

this is basically what i meant. sorry i picked a bad example that's already been normalized in the cs field to mean "eyeball it and see how many loops deep you are"

# ? May 29, 2017 21:26

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

School of How posted:

Its possible to write an algorithm that is O(n) but uses a lot of IO, and is still slower than an algorithm that uses a lot less IO, but is technically O(n^2). Big O only applies to algorithms that are completely CPU bound. Unfortunately so very few people who are in charge of hiring actually understand this.

having a lot of trouble liking how here

# ? May 29, 2017 21:26

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

jre posted:

Going to need to see your working on how the db is handling complexity for you.

i tell the db what i want. the db creates the algorithm to get that data.

# ? May 29, 2017 21:43

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

redleader posted:

i tell the db what i want. the db creates the algorithm to get that data.

you know the db will gently caress this up on the regular and you need to know how to diagnose the bottleneck.

i get resenting arbitrary nerds-only notation. like, i literally only understand log n conceptually, the math involved in logarithms is lost in high school math fog to me, but being able to do basic complexity analysis is a critical programming skill and the shorthand of big O takes 20 minutes to learn and will let you easily communicate with your analysis with other people. the only reason not to learn it is just being a stubborn idiot who wants to stick it to an abstract concept instead of getting jobs.

# ? May 29, 2017 22:02

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# ? May 11, 2024 08:05

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

like, explain to me why bubble sort is slower than merge sort in one sentence. big O notation can do it extremely succinctly in a way every programmer will recognize. your sentence is likely to be wandering and confusing. don't forget that i was a technical writer before i ever wrote a line of code. having a useful, compact, expressive, and universally understood notation for a difficult concept is extremely ftw.

# ? May 29, 2017 22:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > interviewing and job hunting is garbage

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