this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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If it's about problem solving and using logic, why do we need to memorize quicksort? That's not an example of using logic or problem solving
it's actually about testing your ability and willingness to jump through hoops that serve no discernible purpose, one of the most vital skills for working within 99% of human organizations
You don’t need to memorize quicksort. If you understand how it works, it’s trivial to work out the exact details.
Thank you.
"I don't have to know CS201 Data Structures and Algorithms to do my job", says a thousand D-tier coders online, whose code is costing their employers a small fortune in unnecessary cloud compute bills because they just blindly imported a ton of python libraries and went with the least suitable data structures and algorithms for the task at hand, because that's what the defaults were for that library. "It fulfils all the requirements from the client perfectly, bow to my experience and skill in delivering customer value".
It's classic Dunning-Kruger, incompetent people who are too incompetent to know they're incompetent.
Bonus points when they cite the fact that they were involved with a project that cost a hundred million dollars, as "proof" that they're a world-class expert, when it probably would have been a ten million dollar project with an actually competent engineer...
you can also 'trivially' derive the quadratic formula using completing the square, but does anybody actually do that instead of just memorizing the formula?
That depends on how often you use it. If I needed to write quicksort as often as the quadratic formula, I’d probably remember it. And if I only used the quadratic formula as often as I do quicksort, I’d just derive it each time.
Honestly, for the first year or two after learning about it (which is the only time where it's really relevant) that's exactly what I did. Spend 30 seconds, derive something that's definitely correct, and never worry again about your memory randomly failing you
I meant that as 2 separate thoughts. The quick sort is about understanding algorithms and ability to communicate them.
"how to problem solve" and "use logic" are, I believe, myths. When you teach someone to implement quicksort, all you've done is taught them to implement quicksort. Classroom based lectures and rote memorization do not impart any kind of broader "problem-solving" ability. This is an ex post rationalization by the perpetrators of the education system to justify their own existence. I place the value of what they do very low