Is learning algorithms and datastructures really important?
stormrider: "Knowing the standard algorithms and data structures will help you in cases where you want something which is almost but not quite standard. For example, I recently wrote a no-inserts hash table, because for my particular application I wanted to start with a populated table and then gradually remove entries; by removing the ability to insert entries, I made the code much simpler and faster (no need for rehashing!) -- but if I hadn't been entirely familiar with standard hash tables, I wouldn't have been able to do this."That is a great example (and answer!) thanks!