
Why I don’t care about quick sort - yanis_t
http://blog.mdnbar.com/why-i-dont-care-about-quick-sort
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Nadya
I agree and disagree. I agree that understanding quick sort likely isn't all
that important as a means to itself and especially for most companies.
However, understanding O(n) or O(log n) and coming up with the proper solution
to a problem that is optimized when you are scaling to running that code
_millions_ of times an _hour_ is drastic to _some_ businesses.

It is always beneficial to learn something you don't know to build at least a
basic understanding of it than it is to ignore it.

It's great you can admit you don't know how to implement quick sort. But the
proper attitude would be to _go find out_. :)

Lastly, some advice for running a blog. Spell check before posting. If you
don't care to read your own blog - why should I? For many users, especially
the HN crowd, a blog littered with typos is going to be met by a closed tab.

~~~
yanis_t
Good point, sir. I'm not a native speaker, as you might already have guessed,
and probably think of my spelling skill too much :) I'll fix the typos.

But I'm not going to "find out" about the quick sort, anyway. And the reason
why is exactly what this article is about.

What I was trying to say by it, is that we as developers should invest our
time consciously in learning things that will lead to company's profit.
There's so much to learn these days. Many new shiny interesting things. And we
are sometimes being too tech-y, we like to learn hard stuff, because it make
us feel smart.

While the smart thing would be to constantly thinking about whether I really
need that skill or not.

~~~
Nadya
_> I'm not a native speaker, as you might already have guessed_

I picked up on that, don't worry! It was meant as advice, as many people would
stop reading without keeping that in mind.

 _> What I was trying to say by it, is that we as developers should invest our
time consciously in learning things that will lead to company's profit._

This assumes you're already working for the company. Generally this sort of
thing is asked in an interview. If the company is asking you to perform a
quick sort - it may be the field of work that is beneficial to the companies
bottom line and therefore be important to know!

The reasoning here is much like the argument against "code a binary tree
search on a whiteboard" except it replaced "search binary tree" with
"quicksort". It may or may not be applicable but if a company is asking, they
believe it might be. (Or they consider it a display of talent/skill, which can
be equally important in hiring decisions.)

