Reddit Sort: The World's Least Efficient Algorithm

Technical interviews are the ultimate game of "say what you want, get what you don't." The interviewer wanted to see your algorithm skills, maybe a nice little loop with a comparison variable. Instead, they got two lines that leverage the language's built-in methods. Technically correct—the best kind of correct. The interviewer's face is the universal expression for "I should have been more specific with my requirements." This is why senior devs write tickets with 17 paragraphs of edge cases.

When your algorithm professor says "brute force is O(n) in the worst case" and you think it's not so bad until you realize n=1000 and you're at combination 980. That's the computational equivalent of getting to the last bathroom stall only to discover there's no toilet paper. Just 20 more combinations to go, but your flight boards in 5 minutes. Classic Murphy's Law of Computing: the solution is always in the last place you look—and usually when you're out of time.

Ah, the infamous "Elon Sort" – the perfect algorithm if you hate both your data and your users. It's basically what happens when Silicon Valley hubris meets computer science. Fire half your array elements, realize you need them, bring them back in a completely random order, repeat this chaotic process an arbitrary number of times, then just lie about the results. Reminds me of every startup I've consulted for that claimed their ML algorithm was "revolutionary" when it was really just a glorified random number generator with a press release.

When you're staring at an expression like a + b * c / d - e and your brain just... nopes out. Sure, you COULD memorize the operator precedence table like some kind of mathematical wizard, OR you could just throw parentheses at everything like you're building a fortress of clarity. The calculator might know its order of operations, but do you trust it? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Better slap those parentheses around every single operation just to be safe. Is it elegant? No. Does it work? Also questionable. But at least you know EXACTLY what's happening, even if your code looks like it's wearing braces on its teeth. Pro tip: PEMDAS is great until you realize programming languages have like 47 different operator precedence levels and bitwise operators lurking in the shadows.

The perfect visualization of AI conversations between a data scientist and a manager. Left guy: "Here's our multilayer perceptron neural network with input, hidden, and output layers." Manager: "What's it do?" Data scientist: "It outputs a 4." Manager: "That's it? That's dumb as hell." Meanwhile, the beautiful 3D function surface plot that actually represents complex mathematical transformations sits there being completely unappreciated. It's the classic "I spent 3 weeks optimizing this model and all my boss cares about is if it makes the line go up."

The classic educational progression: learn to drive an automatic in class, practice with a manual transmission for homework, then take your exam in the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Computer science degrees in a nutshell. "Here's how variables work" on Monday, "implement a neural network from scratch" by Friday, and "invert a binary tree while the building is on fire" during finals week.