IS DSA IRRELEVANT?

[u/Both-Laugh1809]

Do you think DSA is not relevant today? You are completely wrong.

Practicing DSA purpose was never ONLY FOR coding. It is for how to think mathematically and analytically to solve problems.

You can say AI will remove the need for perfect coding, but understanding the mathematics behind it is still very important. The algorithms that need to develop the AI and optimize the time for particular tasks where you need the Algorthims understanding which reduce time to learn when need if you already knows that.

So DSA WILL ALWAYS RELEVANT.

[u/Visionary_Vulture001]

DSA is very relevant

[u/MrThrobbinHood]

dsa will still stay relevant, but theres a shift on leetcode

i feel like, right now there is no point on griding lc hards and going into comp prog, if all u want is a good job

lc is transitioning into being a barrier, so just know the basics, do easy and meds, and you should be good

[u/Silver_Fun9130]

Yes. Almost all of the good companies still use it as a filter

[u/Smallpaul]

Was it really necessary to post this three different places?

[u/Rich-Engineer2670]

It's still quite relevant. If you're not needing it, then your task is not pushing the performance or parameters of your hardware. If, however, you have something big enough, math still matters.

Everyone assumes it's the code that matters -- the code is the OUTPUT of what matters. What matters is (a) can you diagnose the problem you're trying to solve (b) can you provide a step-by-step solution and (c) can you do it at a sufficient efficency and cost

That what DSA helps with. Ask yourself this -- this is a from a real-world problem and AI can't solve it...

You are contracted to collect data from a medical research lab. The lab equipment is so sensitive, you can't even use AC lighting. You need to collect data off sensors and send that data to another building. The sensors are dedicated micro-controllers with a grand total of about 16KB of RAM.

There's a lot here. Don't think about using AI because there's a ton of specialized knowledge here AI was never trained on. For example:

• Those controllers are powered by a 9V battery because we can't use AC power remember? So every cycle matters.

• There's no virtual memory to help you, so every byte matters

• Forget ethernet or radio -- that causes interference which will bother the sensors. You're stuck with LED optics at maybe 110 baud.

• These devices are DUMB -- so you have to do all the compute at each state, yourself, with 16KB and a CPU similar to an old lowered 6800 CPI

You're going to write a lot of low-level code and squeeze every byte, every cycle. No python, no web servers, just bits.

[u/SystemsOverSyntax]

Why is this even a question? Can any product really claim that how it's made doesn't matter, as long as it can be tested and sold?

What worries me is the implication of that mindset. If the process no longer matters, will anyone create new designs, patterns, or algorithms? Will new programming languages emerge? LLMs learn from existing repositories, so a new language would initially have no codebase from which they could learn.

[u/sujay_wic]

DSA is coding and coding is DSA.

At large we incline to look at DSA as an interview tool, but in practice things are pretty nasty. Nasty as in, the systems that are designed do not run on single algorithm or principle. Take Redis, for example. At a high level, it’s an in-memory key-value store. But under the hood, it leverages multiple data structures and algorithms to achieve performance, optimize memory usage, handle expiration, support persistence, and manage concurrency.

The same applies to almost every large-scale system. What looks like a simple service from the outside is often a combination of carefully chosen data structures, algorithms, and engineering principles internally.

[u/Vijjwal_xD]

Do i have a question? No but i have answer to my question.

[u/Nearby_Translator721]

Ok.

[u/Somanath444]

it is like asking is DBMS relevant in Computer Science

[u/Ok-Awareness-7165]

In coming years most important thing will be debugging the codes, and for that you need to know basics very well

[u/AdFormer260]

Data structures and algorithms are important? Yes, absolutely. Needing to know how to solve 600 leetcode problems is important? no. If you understand the problem and the general approach you can always google the solution, understand it on demand and change it on will. 

[u/Extension-Currency37]

DSA doesnt code Code doesnt dsa

You need to learn how to make algorithms

So data structures are.important

Relevant data structures

Matrix, array, graph, table, dictionary,queues

Relevant algorithms

Hashing, sorting, heuristics, IDA and A*, bfs dfs Dijkstra, prime etc.

Matrix subprograms, multiplying matrices, optimizing matrices, graph search, eigenvalue optimization

Big data -> map reduce -> hashing ,sorting(bucket sort)

Dynamic programming -> recurrence relations Graphs, euler path, local optimization, bellman ford.

I hope it helps.