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Some would argue that if it lowers your opinion of the author it is an "autoding" already (whether you're willing to admit it or not). Take this scenario: You

by nocman 16y ago

Some would argue that if it lowers your opinion of the author it is an "autoding" already (whether you're willing to admit it or not). Take this scenario: You have a single position you are interviewing people for. You've got two candidates with entirely even qualifications. The only perceivable difference between them is that one of them writes interview code with variable names spelled like in the original post. The other guy spells things the way you would expect. I'm willing to bet you'd end up hiring the second guy. Sounds like an "autoding" to me. Or would you argue that you would not do that?

roel_v 16y ago
I don't understand your logic. Two people who are in every respect exactly the same, but one can't spell or at least has weird, non-standard spelling habits. The rational choice here is the person who spells correctly. My point was, spelling in variable names is only a very minor factor when deciding on hiring or not hiring a candidate. If his reasoning and experience and work ethic etc. are all ok, spelling wouldn't make those factors irrelevant. When a factor is automatically excluding, that means that no matter how good in other respects the candidate is, I still wouldn't hire him (for example someone with a swastika tattooed on his face applying for a customer-facing job). I never suggested any such a thing anywhere (and I don't think you're claiming I am). So I don't see how you're coming to the conclusion that I think that making spelling mistakes automatically excludes a candidate.
- tptacek 16y ago
  His logic is that you are in fact "dinging" the candidate. He used an artificial scenario to illustrate that. In reality, you never have two candidates who are absolutely equivalent except for spelling ability. The interview process is extremely high-error, brutally timeboxed, and infamously ineffective. The most important capability you need to assess is "ability to code". You know a priori you're going to do a crappy job assessing that capability. Whether or not he thinks you should be wasting time on trivialities like variable name spelling (I myself would dodge this problem by using names like "x" and "cp" for utterly trivial, well-known example problems like this), I don't know. My bias is pretty clear.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Let's clarify terminology first - I shouldn't have used the word "autoding" because it's slang and its use in another message board that I visit may not be universally accepted. I meant "an automatic disqualifier" - a condition that would completely negate any positive aspects. Under that definition, I don't see any way to construe my earlier remarks as meaning that I would such a high importance on spelling of variable names.

by nocman 16y ago

roel_v 16y ago

I don't understand your logic. Two people who are in every respect exactly the same, but one can't spell or at least has weird, non-standard spelling habits. The rational choice here is the person who spells correctly. My point was, spelling in variable names is only a very minor factor when deciding on hiring or not hiring a candidate. If his reasoning and experience and work ethic etc. are all ok, spelling wouldn't make those factors irrelevant. When a factor is automatically excluding, that means that no matter how good in other respects the candidate is, I still wouldn't hire him (for example someone with a swastika tattooed on his face applying for a customer-facing job). I never suggested any such a thing anywhere (and I don't think you're claiming I am). So I don't see how you're coming to the conclusion that I think that making spelling mistakes automatically excludes a candidate.

tptacek 16y ago
His logic is that you are in fact "dinging" the candidate. He used an artificial scenario to illustrate that. In reality, you never have two candidates who are absolutely equivalent except for spelling ability. The interview process is extremely high-error, brutally timeboxed, and infamously ineffective. The most important capability you need to assess is "ability to code". You know a priori you're going to do a crappy job assessing that capability. Whether or not he thinks you should be wasting time on trivialities like variable name spelling (I myself would dodge this problem by using names like "x" and "cp" for utterly trivial, well-known example problems like this), I don't know. My bias is pretty clear.
- roel_v 16y ago
  Let's clarify terminology first - I shouldn't have used the word "autoding" because it's slang and its use in another message board that I visit may not be universally accepted. I meant "an automatic disqualifier" - a condition that would completely negate any positive aspects. Under that definition, I don't see any way to construe my earlier remarks as meaning that I would such a high importance on spelling of variable names.