CONFESS! Programmers Are Confessing Their Coding Sins!

Razer g2s at riseup.net
Thu Mar 2 07:15:16 PST 2017



On 03/01/2017 11:11 PM, oshwm wrote:

> I'd take someone with good imagination who has to look up fine details over someone who has a photographic memory and no imagination any day.


The money men opted for lack of imagination and ability to smile at your
co-worker even as you plan their assassination. Because it alway worked
before.

Rr

> On 2 March 2017 04:22:34 GMT+00:00, "James A. Donald" <jamesd at echeque.com> wrote:
>> 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.
> I'd take someone with good imagination who has to look up fine details over someone who has a photographic memory and no imagination any day.




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