Wait.
Do you, really?
The only people who can do this off the top of their heads are
People who write sorting algorithms in their day-to-day jo...
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I do not think that is a valid excuse during an interview. It’s not the fact that you need to know it to work there, that’s like elementary school students saying when will I ever have to use math.
I would look at it another way: if you're being asked to regurgitate CS basics in an interview, rather than how you might creatively solve real world problems, the work they have in mind for you is probably fairly dull; or they have a very poor interview process.
I have zero formal CS experience. I would definitely need to look up the theory of writing a sort algorithm; but in one interview I was told I was only the second person to completely solve their sample problem. From what I gathered they had a fair number of CS graduates apply...
I'd have absolutely no hesitation telling a prospective employer why their interview process is borked. If they're not receptive to constructive criticism I don't want to work for them...
Some times we get to be choosy about the environment we want and in those scenarios I agree that looking for those indicators is of high value.
You're right: not everyone gets to be choosy; but I don't think that means you have to learn sort algorithms (or all the other possible 'standard' problems you might be set) for the purpose of passing ill-conceived interviews; and I think that was the point of the article ;)
I wouldn't advocate refusing to do a task in an interview; but you could instead talk through the processes you'd follow in order to solve a problem: e.g. why would I need a bespoke sort here when I know there are plenty of built-in options? Is performance really going to be such an issue that the extra development time is justified? How will I test performance? How do I establish if the solution I found is the most appropriate? etc. That demonstrates thought processes that are going to be much more useful to an employer than the fact you memorised something that can easily be found online.
I think that's kinda the point of this post - you probably don't need to know that in your day-to-day professional life.
You do need to know a bunch of other stuff, but implementing bubble sort, quick sort, or any other well-known algorithm (even FizzBuzz - that's true for all, not only for sort algorithms) is probably not something you need to know in order to be a good developer or an asset to your employer.
My point is advocating refusing to do a task by your interviewer is not in your best interest to get a job. We can be clever all we want with why we don’t need to know or prove something but they decide if you are in or out.
I second your opinion.
On a very similar topic, I posted this dev.to/swarupkm/will-i-still-be-ca... . I was glad to see some seasoned developers had their opinion similar to what you have mentioned.
I don't need to know a sorting algorithm, because I eat the whole box of Smarties by myself. I'm not sharing!
I totally agree with you.
I have in fact, only ever sorted one data set, and that was the lottery numbers in a little web-scraper :D
Ben, I love your writing style. It's super fun and conversational!
I'm not sure I'd be comfortable using that answer in an interview, but we'll see how it goes 😅
Why thank you:)
Sad but not necessarily wrong, I’m in the market and looking for entry level but I have a very diverse skill set. Transitioning from an IT position.