To the one who did a degree:
How mush do you use the algorithms you've learnt in the college/University?

I dont have my degree yet, but let me answer
There are 2 possible outcomes, you become like a web dev or something, who makes sw for the masses and you never touch algorithms again

Or you become like an analyst or backend dev or something and use algorithms 1000x more difficult than what you studied

@RazorSh4rk I'm a web dev and I've used algorithms a bit. Quite simple stuff tho, binary search mainly.

I once created an array rotating component in React using modulo. Not sure if that counts but it was pretty cool 😁

Unless your work demands it not much but you will be happy you learned them when you need them.

Algorithms are actually a lot of fun if you look at it from a mathematician's perspective. They don't have to be useful if they're entertaining 8)

Heading to college in a month. I heard college Computer Science isn't all too practical.

biggest career regret: paying for college

Question: Where are algorithms mainly (and most certainly) used?
Answer: Interviews.

Tbh don't worry about learning algorithms - only the traditional ones for interviews. When you get a job that requires the use of algorithms, you'll learn them on the fly there.

I'm at uni, and algorithms are shit.

Pretty rare that I come up with something that isn't already there. In very specific cases I've had to do stuff but I use already made things all the time. It mostly about knowing the special cases.

Mostly use them for fun, recreational programming type of stuff like hacker rank or project Euler....kinda goes hand in hand with maths so it's not just algorithms.

I didn't do a degree but had to force feed it to myself after I graduated (with an even more useless finance degree) so I could maybe get an interview with Google and actual tech companies... Still haven't got one but I learned that some things are good to know.

“What I Learned From Studying Algorithms and Data Structures (AlgoDS 2)” https://medium.com/@allanx2000/...

I don't know why everyone is bashing universities here, but in the Netherlands you simple don't get hired when you don't have a degree and what you learn is actually useful.

But about algorithms, yes I use the knowledge quite often, but not in developing algorithms or something, more about what is an efficient datastructere. When do I need to use linked list, or array, or dictionary(hash map). There are actually a great deal of performance differences in those. If you are a data scientist, this knowledge is more important, because it makes a big difference if you're code is running in a couple of minutes or takes days to finish.

And of course there is lot of places where this performance difference doesn't matter, sure. But most applications, even javascript / html applications, that have some size have some performance related requirements. So I do think it can come in handy.

But, there are a lot of people that can program without knowledge about algorithm, so it isn't necessary

@micfort Really? I can pick up a position anywhere in the US just based on experience. I didn't even bother completing my degree because full time positions offered more real world experience and let me get a head start paying off the damned loans.

Higher education in the US is just a scam, or at least it feels that way.

@unfuckers-inc if you have some work experience like 5 to 10 years fulltime, then yeah, you can also get hired on experience. But below that, for an actual position as developer you will probably need a degree of some sort in higher or scientific education.