Comment by gabrieledarrigo
2 days ago
One thing is reversing a linked list during a white board interview. Another write a simple JOIN between two tables.
Come on guys, working on backend applications and not having a clue about writing simple SQL statements, even for extracting some data from a database feels...awkward
With NOSQL becoming more ubiquitous (for better or worse), it's not unfathomable that someone simply never had an opportunity to do something as simple write a join between two tables. Someone replied to my comment and taught me how in 5 lines of code. I read it and I'm like, oh that makes sense. Cool. I won't remember it exactly but I understand it. I wouldn't hold it against a front-end developer who's only ever worked with Vue to understand what happens when a React node rerenders.
My point is that there are acceptable levels of abstraction in all parts of software. Some companies will have different tolerances for understanding of that abstraction. Maybe they want a front-end dev to understand the CSS generated from tailwind. Or maybe they want them to know exactly what happens when a React node is rerendered. Or maybe the company doesn't care as long as the person is demonstrably productive and efficient at building stuff. What some consider basic knowledge can be considered irrelevant to others. Whether or not that has lasting consequences is to be seen, but that just brings us full circle back to the original problem at hand (is it good that people can vibe code something and not understand the code it generates)