Re:The Engineer Crunch
by martian on Wednesday February 19, 2014 @10:53AM
(#7264175)
I'm curious to know what kinds of problems you work on, then?
I find that I need to have a strong working knowledge of data structures every day. Hashes, lists, trees, and so on. Knowing how to apply data structures in production code matters a lot: the difference between a hash lookup and a linear scan, for example, can mean the difference between a reasonable response time for an application and an absolutely terrible response time.
In interviews, I have found that good understanding of these data structures (and the algorithms one uses to manipulate them) correlates strongly with ability to solve larger and more complex problems.
I find that I need to have a strong working knowledge of data structures every day. Hashes, lists, trees, and so on. Knowing how to apply data structures in production code matters a lot: the difference between a hash lookup and a linear scan, for example, can mean the difference between a reasonable response time for an application and an absolutely terrible response time.
In interviews, I have found that good understanding of these data structures (and the algorithms one uses to manipulate them) correlates strongly with ability to solve larger and more complex problems.