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Comment by aruss | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why we keep passing around this kind of anti-intellectual, faux-controversial drivel. Very little is required to be a programmer (whatever it means to be a programmer). No, you don't need to be an expert on algorithm analysis or complexity theory or some other CS theoretical thing to be a programmer, but it's quite obviously better to be able to reason in a certain way about certain problems (and of course asymptotic analysis isn't everything when dealing with practical applications).

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I would agree with your first statement. I do not agree with the authors proposition that you do not need to understand a bit more than just the surface of something like complexity theory in order to be a good programmer. Being able to develop software is different paradigm altogether, not being able to fall back on theories and a least minimal understanding of principles, wil llead you to not only forget it, but being able to test such assumptions like discussed is not optimal, especially in a work environment >> considering the agile mindset so revered in Silicon Valley..Thank for allowing my inout but thanks for a interesting article.

> "I don't know why we keep passing around this kind of anti-intellectual, faux-controversial drivel."

There is a rather vocal minority in this community who think that attending universities is a waste of time. These people are naturally interested in notion that things commonly taught in universities, but frequently glossed over when self-teaching or at "hacker schools", are not necessary.

> not necessary

No education is necessary, but that doesn’t make it devoid of value. Speaking as a US citizen, I truly believe what my country and countless others around the globe desperately need is better and accessible education, absolutely including the Arts.

The opposing viewport can likely be called anti-intellectual in fairness.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I am not a member of this minority.

If I am hiring for a developer position, I consider at least a basic knowledge of complexity to be necessary. There are too many developers who are familiar with it for me to waste my time on ones that are not.

I am not speaking of "necessary" in a universal sense, since that would be nearly impossible to define and a useless concept even if we could. If we really get down to it, breathing isn't necessary...

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