[pretoriusB]

>but what I do know is how to find out the answer given a computer and an internet connection.

Then you are not good enough for them. They want someone that breaths and knows these things inside out and backwards.

Any half-competent dabbler can look them up and implement them. Creating novel solutions takes more deep understanding of them than that.

[eli_gottlieb]

The difference being that novel solutions require actual domain knowledge rather than an n-levels-deep memorization of the entirety of your Algorithms 1 and 2 courses from university.

[andreasvc]

It's not either/or, you need to understand, not (just) memorize, the algorithms enough to see where they could be applied in or adapted to the domain in question.

Similarly, I could quip that nontrivial novel solutions require "actual" algorithms knowledge rather than exhaustive domain knowledge. Not surprisingly, in reality it's a bit of both.

[stonemetal]

There is this Shakespearean scholar who doesn't remember any of the works of Shakespeare. You ask him to recite a sonnet his response is they are written down he doesn't have to memorize them. Doesn't even own a print copy Google after all right? He is trying to come up with a new understanding of the works of Shakespeare.

You have to have the assumptions down cold before you can challenge them. You have to have the basics down cold before you can reshape them. Having the fundamentals down so cold that you can apply and work with them is the beginning of the path not the end.

[pretoriusB]

The domain knowledge when it comes to implementing algorithms is algorithms themselves...