Comment by anyfoo
17 hours ago
> I failed a job interview once by using reduce() in a coding test. The reviewer didn't understand why I hadn't used a loop.
Honestly, sounds like the reviewer failed the interview, not the other way around.
17 hours ago
> I failed a job interview once by using reduce() in a coding test. The reviewer didn't understand why I hadn't used a loop.
Honestly, sounds like the reviewer failed the interview, not the other way around.
Nah. Reduce is less performant and less readable than a regular loop. In my anecdotal experience, only people who want to appear smart and minimize the number of characters prefer reduce.
I don't know about JavaScript, but those statements are definitely not universally true in other languages.
Reduce definitely does not reduce character count. It's the loop-hacking that does that.
However, I agree it might be less performant, and it's a certain kind of thinking that isn't quickly grokked (and doesn't have to be). I deliberately tried to write my story about the interview so as to make it sound like there's positives and negatives to both positions expressed. _I_ have a preference for that functional style, but I know it's not for everyone. That's totally fine.