[freedomben]

Interesting, I use stuff I learned from my computer science frequently, especially regarding algorithms, data structures, and OS fundamentals. Granted I'm much more on the backend/infra side, but those things still come up regularly. Just yesterday I faced an issue regarding the way threads operate that a basic understanding of processes and threads in the OS made a lot easier.

It's nothing that a person can't learn outside of a CS degree of course, but most people won't spend the time to dig into the formal and often abstract principles to really understand how different algorithms perform and how choice of data structure impacts performance. I've reviewed code many times that really should be using a linked list or tree but ends up thrown into a hash because that's basically the only data structure the person knows. Not uncommon is a reply "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" which drives me crazy. It doesn't take much effort to just use the right data structure in the first place if you understand their pros and cons.