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What has this proven exactly? Has an study been done to show a strong correlation between these test scores and ACTUAL programmer productivity? What two metrics

What has this proven exactly? Has an study been done to show a strong correlation between these test scores and ACTUAL programmer productivity? What two metrics are you correlating here? All I see is a score. Is this score valuable? I see nothing outside of pure speculation or opinion to suggest that's the case in the link. And anyone who wants to rebut and say, "that's an impossible task" or "but we know what it takes to be a good programmer" is full of it. We don't. We actually have no real, documented objective way of determining what a good programmer is. My definition is creates a program, to spec that is acceptably performant. Even that has tons of subjectivity and bias to it. Guess what, everyone has a different definition or bar. And frankly they are all full of our inherent biases.

lolc 9y ago
While I don't know whether this has been studied, I would expect the interview results to correlate well with years of experience for example. I think what these interviews test best is your ability to interact with your peers. Candidates who interface badly with other people would have trouble getting a good score. So yes some brilliant people will bomb those interviews. And some talkers will manage to pass one interviewer. In total I would expect those interviews to indicate a minimum of professional knowledge in combination with good communication skills. That is valuable data without it being objective in an absolute sense.
- sulam 9y ago
  I'm not convinced they correlate with years of experience. In fact they may well inversely correlate. I give a relaxed algorithm design screen to candidates (of which roughly 70% pass -- I'm a soft touch) that include a problem that is mildly academic in nature. New grads are the ones that tell me they already know it and I have to move on to the next problem (which, amusingly, they never have experience with). Experience people often have a vague recollection of what it does, but not enough of a recollection to prevent me from learning something from the discussion about how to get it done.

lolc 9y ago

While I don't know whether this has been studied, I would expect the interview results to correlate well with years of experience for example. I think what these interviews test best is your ability to interact with your peers. Candidates who interface badly with other people would have trouble getting a good score. So yes some brilliant people will bomb those interviews. And some talkers will manage to pass one interviewer. In total I would expect those interviews to indicate a minimum of professional knowledge in combination with good communication skills. That is valuable data without it being objective in an absolute sense.

sulam 9y ago
I'm not convinced they correlate with years of experience. In fact they may well inversely correlate. I give a relaxed algorithm design screen to candidates (of which roughly 70% pass -- I'm a soft touch) that include a problem that is mildly academic in nature. New grads are the ones that tell me they already know it and I have to move on to the next problem (which, amusingly, they never have experience with). Experience people often have a vague recollection of what it does, but not enough of a recollection to prevent me from learning something from the discussion about how to get it done.