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> 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. Does the intervi

by ng12 10y ago

> 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. Does the interviewer explain what bubble sort is, or do they expect the candidate to know it? The first is a reasonable interview, the second one isn't.

AdamN 10y ago
quicksort would be fine too :-)
- hermitdev 10y ago
  I had a phone interview where I was asked how I would write quicksort. I responded: I wouldn't. Interviewer chuckled, said good answer and moved on. I got the job.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Nition 10y ago
Or tell them you want them to write an implementation of bubble sort on the whiteboard and then give them a 1 minute allowance to use the Internet. Then you can test their Google skills too!
reboog711 10y ago
Bubble Sort is a common sorting algorithm. I would expect anyone w/ a CS degree to know sort of what it is. But, for the most part; I can't imagine anyone ever having to write it on the job unless they are doing super low level stuff. All the 'current' languages provide sorting algorithms built in.
- brianpgordon 10y ago
  I feel like it probably functions more as a proxy of general algorithms knowledge. If you've forgotten even the most basic algorithms like bubble/insertion/selection/merge/quick sort then that indicates that you've been neglecting your algorithms knowledge since college. It also kind of depends on the person. If you're interviewing an intern who's still in college, absolutely they should still remember bubble sort. If they don't know it off the top of their heads, they weren't paying attention in class. If you're interviewing someone who went to a boot camp then it would be expected that they wouldn't know a lot of the trivia like bubble sort that nobody really uses.
mwfunk 10y ago
I guess I would expect just about anyone to know what a bubble sort is, but I wonder if that's bias from the classes I took. Every class on algorithms I ever took would start off with a bubble sort as an example of a sorting algorithm, then use it as exhibit A for figuring out the big O performance of an algorithm (the outcome of which was always, "...and that's why you should never use a bubble sort"). I assume that most people were taught most of the same material as I was, but in reality that may not be the case. It's very hard to pin down what sorts of things "everyone" should be expected to know. I agree with the consensus that whiteboard coding and CS trivia is not a good way to run interviews, but I bet many/most of the people who complain the loudest about interviews have their own misconceptions about what constitutes common knowledge for programmers. Any hiring process based on asking several current employees to take turns talking to someone for 30-60 minutes and make a hiring decision based on that is going to be deeply flawed. However, the only alternatives I've heard are so much more costly, lengthy, and elaborate that I just can't imagine many companies moving to a different process anytime soon. This debate is also complicated because different people want very different things out of the process. Job seekers want processes that minimize false negatives (i.e., they don't want to fail the interview even though they'd make good employees), but employers want processes that minimize false positives (they don't want people who get through the hiring process that end up being bad employees that the company is now stuck with). The current process probably doesn't do either of these things. But every more elaborate process I've heard people say they want seems to go to one extreme or the other- it either greatly favors the job seeker who hates false negatives, or greatly favors the employer who hates false positives. It's a hard problem with no good answers yet unfortunately. :(
- Bjartr 10y ago
  > I guess I would expect just about anyone to know what a bubble sort is, but I wonder if that's bias from the classes I took. It was covered in my first year CS courses... something like 9 years ago. I've not once needed to be able to re-implement it (or any sorting algorithm) in the intervening time finishing my degree and five years doing software dev as my day-job, much less re-implement it from memory. I would need to look it up to refresh myself on its implementation and characteristics.

by ng12 10y ago

AdamN 10y ago

quicksort would be fine too :-)

hermitdev 10y ago
I had a phone interview where I was asked how I would write quicksort. I responded: I wouldn't. Interviewer chuckled, said good answer and moved on. I got the job.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Nition 10y ago

Or tell them you want them to write an implementation of bubble sort on the whiteboard and then give them a 1 minute allowance to use the Internet. Then you can test their Google skills too!

reboog711 10y ago

Bubble Sort is a common sorting algorithm. I would expect anyone w/ a CS degree to know sort of what it is. But, for the most part; I can't imagine anyone ever having to write it on the job unless they are doing super low level stuff. All the 'current' languages provide sorting algorithms built in.

brianpgordon 10y ago
I feel like it probably functions more as a proxy of general algorithms knowledge. If you've forgotten even the most basic algorithms like bubble/insertion/selection/merge/quick sort then that indicates that you've been neglecting your algorithms knowledge since college. It also kind of depends on the person. If you're interviewing an intern who's still in college, absolutely they should still remember bubble sort. If they don't know it off the top of their heads, they weren't paying attention in class. If you're interviewing someone who went to a boot camp then it would be expected that they wouldn't know a lot of the trivia like bubble sort that nobody really uses.

mwfunk 10y ago

I guess I would expect just about anyone to know what a bubble sort is, but I wonder if that's bias from the classes I took. Every class on algorithms I ever took would start off with a bubble sort as an example of a sorting algorithm, then use it as exhibit A for figuring out the big O performance of an algorithm (the outcome of which was always, "...and that's why you should never use a bubble sort"). I assume that most people were taught most of the same material as I was, but in reality that may not be the case. It's very hard to pin down what sorts of things "everyone" should be expected to know. I agree with the consensus that whiteboard coding and CS trivia is not a good way to run interviews, but I bet many/most of the people who complain the loudest about interviews have their own misconceptions about what constitutes common knowledge for programmers. Any hiring process based on asking several current employees to take turns talking to someone for 30-60 minutes and make a hiring decision based on that is going to be deeply flawed. However, the only alternatives I've heard are so much more costly, lengthy, and elaborate that I just can't imagine many companies moving to a different process anytime soon. This debate is also complicated because different people want very different things out of the process. Job seekers want processes that minimize false negatives (i.e., they don't want to fail the interview even though they'd make good employees), but employers want processes that minimize false positives (they don't want people who get through the hiring process that end up being bad employees that the company is now stuck with). The current process probably doesn't do either of these things. But every more elaborate process I've heard people say they want seems to go to one extreme or the other- it either greatly favors the job seeker who hates false negatives, or greatly favors the employer who hates false positives. It's a hard problem with no good answers yet unfortunately. :(

Bjartr 10y ago
> I guess I would expect just about anyone to know what a bubble sort is, but I wonder if that's bias from the classes I took. It was covered in my first year CS courses... something like 9 years ago. I've not once needed to be able to re-implement it (or any sorting algorithm) in the intervening time finishing my degree and five years doing software dev as my day-job, much less re-implement it from memory. I would need to look it up to refresh myself on its implementation and characteristics.