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If they had a killer hook, yes. An editor can always review and fix the grammar. :) A coding analogy: A compiler or debugger can catch bugs. If they can't for

If they had a killer hook, yes. An editor can always review and fix the grammar. :) A coding analogy: A compiler or debugger can catch bugs. If they can't form a competent sentence, they probably would fail to write a convincing hook. But some margin of error is acceptable.

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mruniverse 10y ago
Is the "technical" part really analogous to grammar? I don't think many interviewers care about that. They don't care about missed semi-colons. They want to see that you know how to solve a problem. And a github portfolio is not going to give them that. As an aside, I think debugging is hard even with a debugger.
- rapind 10y ago
  I disagree. A github portfolio combined with time spent via screenshare reviewing and discussing some of that work is far superior to a technical quiz IMHO.
- gavanwoolery 10y ago
  Thats true, probably a poor analogy, but the overall point is that: Determining a programmer's worth probably takes at least a month in my experience. Maybe even two months. I almost got fired within the first month of my first job, but quickly ramped up and turned around to be the highest value-adding employee by virtue of completing the highest paying contracts at a fast pace (the company was later acquired). Most companies can't spend a month, but a day long take-home test is a great alternative. There are so many facets to a programmer's worth, and so many ways to miss them or ask the wrong questions, that I just don't believe in short, high-pressure interviews. Take home tests have been highly successful in my experience (and a few others, from what I have heard).
- chrshawkes 10y ago
  how would a GitHub portfolio of problem solving projects and contributions not show that? I can't think of any better way.
cm3 10y ago
While true for writing books, I wouldn't consider code that doesn't pass a linter or compiler a useful part of one's portfolio. There is no editor equivalent who will fix your syntactic and semantic errors for you, and getting that right is an important part of your experience with a language/tool.
- dagw 10y ago
  There is no editor equivalent It depends on what you are working on. A non-trivial part of my job involves working with domain expert scientists and taking their very clever, but badly written, code that solves some hard problem and turning it into fast, efficient and usable code.

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mruniverse 10y ago

Is the "technical" part really analogous to grammar? I don't think many interviewers care about that. They don't care about missed semi-colons. They want to see that you know how to solve a problem. And a github portfolio is not going to give them that. As an aside, I think debugging is hard even with a debugger.

rapind 10y ago
I disagree. A github portfolio combined with time spent via screenshare reviewing and discussing some of that work is far superior to a technical quiz IMHO.
gavanwoolery 10y ago
Thats true, probably a poor analogy, but the overall point is that: Determining a programmer's worth probably takes at least a month in my experience. Maybe even two months. I almost got fired within the first month of my first job, but quickly ramped up and turned around to be the highest value-adding employee by virtue of completing the highest paying contracts at a fast pace (the company was later acquired). Most companies can't spend a month, but a day long take-home test is a great alternative. There are so many facets to a programmer's worth, and so many ways to miss them or ask the wrong questions, that I just don't believe in short, high-pressure interviews. Take home tests have been highly successful in my experience (and a few others, from what I have heard).
chrshawkes 10y ago
how would a GitHub portfolio of problem solving projects and contributions not show that? I can't think of any better way.

cm3 10y ago

While true for writing books, I wouldn't consider code that doesn't pass a linter or compiler a useful part of one's portfolio. There is no editor equivalent who will fix your syntactic and semantic errors for you, and getting that right is an important part of your experience with a language/tool.

dagw 10y ago
There is no editor equivalent It depends on what you are working on. A non-trivial part of my job involves working with domain expert scientists and taking their very clever, but badly written, code that solves some hard problem and turning it into fast, efficient and usable code.