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I don't think many software engineers deal with "computer science problems" in their everyday jobs. GitHub stars are worth much more IMO. It shows that other d

I don't think many software engineers deal with "computer science problems" in their everyday jobs. GitHub stars are worth much more IMO. It shows that other developers value your work. That says a lot. In the end, we have to realize that most developers are just average. Why go through the ridiculous process of finding average developers who by luck (or some homework) happen to solve the problems you throw at them perfectly?

deleted 11y ago
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maxxxxx 11y ago
Most developers are average and most jobs are average. How many people really get to think about breadth first or binary trees daily? Most of us spend their days wondering why Chrome doesn't render a div in the expected way or why some API doesn't do what it should and finding workarounds.
unoti 11y ago
> Why go through the ridiculous process of finding average developers who by luck (or some homework) happen to solve the problems you throw at them perfectly? Never underestimate the value of hard work, preparation, and a can-do attitude. It eclipses natural talent every time.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  The hardest workers with the most successful can-do attitudes will simply reject your company if you ask them to do bullshit like algorithm trivia or HackerRank tests. Such trivia is the opposite of useful hard work; preparation for it truly wastes time that could be better spent on other things; a can-do attitude would imply rejecting or ignoring requests to do such things. As a result, the people who actually do take the time to complete it will not be completing it because of a good attitude or work ethic, yet you will mistakenly believe they are.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    or they already learned it because they worked hard during school and they work hard to keep themselves current. I think the concerns people have about the efficacy of this interview style is valid, but extending it to the point where you start to make claims about how people who can pass them aren't as good is ridiculous.
    - ljw1001 11y ago
      there's nothing 'current' about BFS. It hasn't changed. You'll never write one to meet a real, work-related need. It's just a memory test that puts recent grads at an advantage.
      - bnastic 11y ago
        Yes, people will write them; the fact that you do not means nothing. Software field is large, do not project your experience onto the rest of the industry.
        ljw1001 10y ago
        Ok, people will write them, but very few people should write them. Also, the question is, is the ability to write a BFS on a whiteboard a useful way to screen programming candidates for most positions. No it is not.
        bnastic 10y ago
        Tree traversal is such a basic algo that anyone who's done any amount of programming shouldn't have trouble working out how to do it, depth- or breadth-first, even if they haven't done that before. If a potential candidate can't figure that out, even in a simple pseudo-code, and even with guidance from an interviewer, I can't imagine ever hiring that person. Next to arrays and lists, trees are such fundamental part of computer programming that I can't find an excuse for not being aware of some basic operations. I am not suggesting here that the RB or AVL trees and all the tricky stuff about them should be your bed time reading, but a certain baseline should be established.
tdeck 11y ago
GitHub stars are a popularity contest that has little correlation with the quality of your work. You get them when lots of people happen to look at your GitHub profile, for one reason or another. I recently discovered this when a project of mine [1] that had been on GitHub for six months got starred by a prominent open source developer at my company. Within the next week, 50 random people came through and starred the same project. It's not my best code, it's not complicated, and I doubt most of those people ever tried it. Instead, they starred it because they're the kind of people who happen to star a lot of things, and they saw it from somewhere else. I'm always happy to get a kudos on GitHub. But those of us who don't play the game of promoting our own code on social media, or who have code we can't post on GitHub, would be at a significant disadvantage in a hiring process based on that metric. [1]: https://github.com/tdeck/teambot https://github.com/tdeck/teambot
Apocryphon 11y ago
Are GitHub star-bots the future?

deleted 11y ago

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maxxxxx 11y ago

Most developers are average and most jobs are average. How many people really get to think about breadth first or binary trees daily? Most of us spend their days wondering why Chrome doesn't render a div in the expected way or why some API doesn't do what it should and finding workarounds.

unoti 11y ago

> Why go through the ridiculous process of finding average developers who by luck (or some homework) happen to solve the problems you throw at them perfectly? Never underestimate the value of hard work, preparation, and a can-do attitude. It eclipses natural talent every time.

p4wnc6 11y ago
The hardest workers with the most successful can-do attitudes will simply reject your company if you ask them to do bullshit like algorithm trivia or HackerRank tests. Such trivia is the opposite of useful hard work; preparation for it truly wastes time that could be better spent on other things; a can-do attitude would imply rejecting or ignoring requests to do such things. As a result, the people who actually do take the time to complete it will not be completing it because of a good attitude or work ethic, yet you will mistakenly believe they are.
- serge2k 11y ago
  or they already learned it because they worked hard during school and they work hard to keep themselves current. I think the concerns people have about the efficacy of this interview style is valid, but extending it to the point where you start to make claims about how people who can pass them aren't as good is ridiculous.
  - ljw1001 11y ago
    there's nothing 'current' about BFS. It hasn't changed. You'll never write one to meet a real, work-related need. It's just a memory test that puts recent grads at an advantage.
    - bnastic 11y ago
      Yes, people will write them; the fact that you do not means nothing. Software field is large, do not project your experience onto the rest of the industry.
      - ljw1001 10y ago
        Ok, people will write them, but very few people should write them. Also, the question is, is the ability to write a BFS on a whiteboard a useful way to screen programming candidates for most positions. No it is not.
        bnastic 10y ago
        Tree traversal is such a basic algo that anyone who's done any amount of programming shouldn't have trouble working out how to do it, depth- or breadth-first, even if they haven't done that before. If a potential candidate can't figure that out, even in a simple pseudo-code, and even with guidance from an interviewer, I can't imagine ever hiring that person. Next to arrays and lists, trees are such fundamental part of computer programming that I can't find an excuse for not being aware of some basic operations. I am not suggesting here that the RB or AVL trees and all the tricky stuff about them should be your bed time reading, but a certain baseline should be established.

tdeck 11y ago

GitHub stars are a popularity contest that has little correlation with the quality of your work. You get them when lots of people happen to look at your GitHub profile, for one reason or another. I recently discovered this when a project of mine [1] that had been on GitHub for six months got starred by a prominent open source developer at my company. Within the next week, 50 random people came through and starred the same project. It's not my best code, it's not complicated, and I doubt most of those people ever tried it. Instead, they starred it because they're the kind of people who happen to star a lot of things, and they saw it from somewhere else. I'm always happy to get a kudos on GitHub. But those of us who don't play the game of promoting our own code on social media, or who have code we can't post on GitHub, would be at a significant disadvantage in a hiring process based on that metric. [1]: https://github.com/tdeck/teambot https://github.com/tdeck/teambot

Apocryphon 11y ago

Are GitHub star-bots the future?