[modi123_1]

I was skimming the discussion on slashdot regarding Old School coding techniques and came across this statement:

Quote

any programmer who can't do a list, hash table, bubble sort, or btree at the drop of a hat ought to be kicked out of the industry.

I started wondering - what other basic or low level concepts do you figure is needed to be know so you can call yourself a programmer?

Also any stories of people coming across idiots not knowing them would be great.

I figured basic data collections - linked lists, stacks, queues, FIFO, FILO.

[KYA]

What do you mean "do a list" Make a list data structure?

This post has been edited by KYA: 30 April 2009 - 10:02 AM

[modi123_1]

KYA, on 30 Apr, 2009 - 11:02 AM, said:

What do you mean "do a list" Make a list data structure?

I would guess as much. I snagged that line from the a ./ post.

[BigAnt]

Quote

What do you mean "do a list" Make a list data structure?

Yes I believe the article was about old school programming knowledge that modern APIs and IDE's mke uneccesarry.

Such as in Java API they have List's like LinkedList and ArrayList and such. Though any one who has taken a Data Structures class and doesn''t know/ are unable to implement one are not that good of programmers in my opinion. It is fairly simple to do. When it get complicated is when you try to make the exisitng codes more efficient with new algorithms and you can't figure out why they were programmed the way they are because the O.P. just made some weird hack because he didn't know what he was doing.

[BlakeJustBlake]

How about, Design Patterns?

They're something most programmers don't learn right away, but are extremely useful.

[cfoley]

Most of the time, knowing how and when to use each of those is more important. Besides, if you know enough about programming to understand the time and space efficiencies involved in their algorithms, programming the structures themselves should be trivial.

[BlakeJustBlake]

Well yeah, there is a lot more to knowing design patterns than just knowing what they are.

[SixOfEleven]

I think that one should understand the principle of recursion. I've seen a lot of 'help me' about recursion.

[KYA]

Recursion, control structure, basic syntax, bubble sort, and btree is a good list. Maybe even throw in a quick or merge sort in there. A working knoweldge of temples/generics also.

[stayscrisp]

I think a knowledge of some kind of version checker/control is very important in professional development.

[AdamSpeight2008]

How to debug properly.

[KYA]

AdamSpeight2008, on 1 May, 2009 - 03:50 PM, said:

How to debug properly.

Clarification? Being able to step through code? I would also add critical thinking as it comes in mighty handy in such a situation.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Stepping through the code is part of debugging.
I agree critical think is important. People need understand why is the problem occurring before changing a single character of the code.
A see a lot of posters do this.
They have problem, change the code, then run the code, have a problem, change the code, etc. etc.

Debugging isn't just running the code. Its the finding out the why?

Edit: Grammer.

This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 01 May 2009 - 04:54 PM

[KYA]

I agree I was just curious on what you actually meant since I think of debugging as somewhat of an art; something that has to be acquired over time through practice, trial and error, etc...

[AdamSpeight2008]

I think the basic skills of debugging should be taught though.