Hey fellow devs. How useful are those algoritm interview prep style books? worth reading? why or why not? Alternatives?
@rascalking I'll def check this out. Thanks. Currently searching for my next role.
@rascalking now that i think about it, i got this for $10 in an ebook sale, lol. Time to brush up.
@Wintermute21 What level are you looking at?
If you already know and understand the basic algorithms you're likely to hit up against, you won't need it except to remind yourself.
If you don't already know them, then the role may be above your level.
The best thing to do in reality may be to join some open source projects and see if you can tackle some bugs and add some smaller new functionality.
Understanding the full life cycle is far more valuable than a list of algorithms.
@Nafrondel Currently looking at jr level roles. Looking into open source.
@Nafrondel I've had the OSS suggestion from a few people, and it's a great idea, I just need to pay bills in the meantime.
@Wintermute21 :D
Paying bills is always helpful.
Even if you don't contribute to an open project in any meaningful way, just having practical experience of using tools like Jira and Github /git; reading existing code; and building it using gradle / maven / ant will put you head and shoulders over almost any other Jr. applicant.
One alternative would be to sign up to github and use it to implement some of the book's examples and kill two birds with one stone!
@Nafrondel I do have my own repos so I should do that. git is built into VS2017 anyway.
@Nafrondel I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit lost though.
@Wintermute21 I'd love to say it'll be easy... but it's a sharp learning curve.
It's also worth at least writing one thing in each major IDE if you can.
But if it helps - everyone in your position is feeling lost too! So if you can find your way before an interview, you stand a great chance.
@Wintermute21 (Sorry to throw so much homework at you ;~) )
@Nafrondel oh, no, please. the more I can be prepared the better. I was never mentored very well, so there's a lot I'm still learning.
@Nafrondel and it's hard to find an org with people who actually want to mentor you rather than see you as a pain in the ass.
@Wintermute21 I get them feels. When I started out, my "mentor"'s go to phrases were "Just do it. It's easy!" and "Why are you doing that? It's impossible!". Which was never helpful.
What's your background been and experience like so far?
@Nafrondel I started off with .NET and joined up with a shady company right after college, got thrown in the deep end, didn't work out well, wasn't very skilled in terms of best practices. Still not. Everywhere i've been has been too fast paced, and people accuse me of being unskilled because I can't keep up. Bad at estimates, etc. Don't know what to do. Never finished uni either because of a learning disorder. As I said, I feel lost.
@Nafrondel Sorry if that was a bit jumbled.
@Wintermute21Oh jeez. That is not how to run any business.
The only time a junior should be asked for estimates is in an agile planning meeting. And they should have an entire team helping them out.
And if you're struggling to keep up, that means they haven't explained and defined the task correctly. You shouldn't be expected to have the skills to get the requirements out of them either.
@Nafrondel And people complain about my asking too many questions, which I never understood. Sigh.
@Nafrondel Why is it so bad to not know how to do something? I never understood that attitude.
@Wintermute21 Asking questions is what juniors are there for. One of the defining characteristics is being able to perform tasks with close supervision and direction - not being expected to make decisions.
If they're too cheap to hire someone at a higher level, and too lazy to give you enough design etc. to not need to ask questions, then that's on them and not on you!
@Nafrondel Like, I had an XML based task at my previous role that I made a hash of because the design wasn't specified in enough detail where I could look it up instead of having to remember everything off the top of my head.
@Nafrondel Needless to say I feel pretty defeated.
@Wintermute21 (Will try to get back to you later! Have to run for a work thing)
@Nafrondel It's cool. Thanks for everything so far.
@Wintermute21 For a bit of insight - the interview process at my workplace includes them sitting the applicant in front of a laptop loaded up with a project. The project has some bugs. The applicant has to find and fix the bugs. Buuuut most have never used the IDE (despite it being the current standard for Java) or used a build tool like Maven, and end up staring at the screen and freaking out.
@Nafrondel Oh wow. How do they write code at all then? lol
@Wintermute21 Yeah... They seem to have been used to either old school command line only, or unmanaged projects.
Or they're Unix coders and refuse to use anything other than VIM because masochist.
@Wintermute21 the one google recommends (http://www.algorist.com/) felt like a less-dry review of what i'd learned as an undergrad. leaned more heavily on graph algorithms (which seems to be what they care about), and stressed recognizing that something was an instance of a known problem with standard approaches.
i didn't get the job, but i do feel like it helped. :)