I kinda hate to admit it but they were right. Data structures and algorithms are kinda the shit and you should try to learn and appreciate them. Not just so you’ll use them. But in that learning them helps you become a better problem solver.

There’s a self taught dev that my company works with for really bespoke applications. A senior dev that works with him and helps manage the development process told me that the dev in question doesn’t really know how to implement the finer details. Very telling indeed.

This a ton. I didn't completely graduate college, but I learned all about data structures, algorithms, and good programming practices early on and that really helped me.

I also work with some self-taught Developers. They didn't understand what a function was and all the code they would write was in a single file with no functions and a lot of repeated code. This guy came from a background of a lot of scripting. He was given the task of working in a MVC project and didn't know anything about object oriented programming or how classes work.

You can really tell when someone hasn't taken the time to learn the fundamentals. Their code (probably) still works, but it looks like a spaghetti nightmare.

I've seen a mess of if(if(if code that sorted arrays on every single insertion and would take us freaking DAYS to process costing thousands of USDs.

Then came this kid with his logarithmic sorted queue heaps.
Now we can afford that process with a fifty and a nap.

data structures are the GOAT.