Hey fellow devs. How useful are those algoritm interview prep style books? worth reading? why or why not? Alternatives?

@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 (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.

@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?