CONFESS! Programmers Are Confessing Their Coding Sins!

James A. Donald jamesd at echeque.com
Wed Mar 1 20:22:34 PST 2017


On 3/2/2017 1:00 PM, Razer wrote:
>> A number of programmers have taken it Twitter to bring it to
>> everyone's, but particularly recruiter's, attention about the grueling
>> interview process in their field that relies heavily on technical
>> questions.
>>
>> David Heinemeier Hansson, a well-known programmer and the creator of
>> the popular Ruby on Rails coding framework, started it when he
>> tweeted, "Hello, my name is David. I would fail to write bubble sort
>> on a whiteboard. I look code up on the internet all the time. I don't
>> do riddles." Another coder added, "Hello, my name is Tim. I'm a lead
>> at Google with over 30 years coding experience and I need to look up
>> how to get length of a python string." Another coder chimed in, "Hello
>> my name is Mike, I'm a GDE and lead at NY Times, I don't know what np
>> complete means. Should I?"
>>
>> A feature story on The Outline adds:
>>
>>> This interview style, widely used by major tech companies including
>>> Google and Amazon, typically pits candidates against a whiteboard
>>> without access to reference material -- a scenario working
>>> programmers say is demoralizing and an unrealistic test of actual
>>> ability. People spend weeks preparing for this process, afraid that
>>> the interviewer will quiz them on the one obscure algorithm they
>>> haven't studied. "
>>>
>> A cottage industry has emerged that reminds us uncomfortably of SAT
>> prep," Karla Monterroso, VP of programs for Code2040, an organization
>> for black and Latino techies, wrote in a critique of the whiteboard
>> interview. [...] This means companies tend to favor recent computer
>> science grads from top-tier schools who have had time to cram; in
>> other words, it doesn't help diversify the field with women, older
>> people, and people of color.
>>
>
> With links:
> https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/03/01/1643251/programmers-are-confessing-their-coding-sins-to-protest-a-broken-job-interview-process


I have not studied any of these things since forever and a day, but I 
can still pass all of them, and anyone who cannot, should not be hired.

I think the last time I read what a bubble sort was, or had to think 
about a bubble sort, was when I read Knuth, more decades ago than I care 
to admit, and yet I can do a bubble sort off the top of my head on a 
whiteboard.

If companies have a lot of people who could not pass these tests, or 
could not pass them without cramming, they should fire a lot of people.


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