2 ms·

Good god, I'm dumber for having read that. (Why is the cover the same shape as the hole? Because otherwise it's a pretty shitty cover (i.e. gaps are bad)) It

by apathy 19y ago

Good god, I'm dumber for having read that. (Why is the cover the same shape as the hole? Because otherwise it's a pretty shitty cover (i.e. gaps are bad)) It's astounding to me that people still care about these artifacts of another era where people fawned over whichever corporate master they sought to please. Good riddance to that, and if PG had never done anything else, he'd still be able to point to that genius ad with "Larry and Sergey won't respect you in the morning" and remain a hero.

gruseom 19y ago
I couldn't agree more. I think it's an asinine practice that, if it is in fact being discredited, deserves it. I posted this as an example of the brainteaser interview being discussed elsewhere (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=162672 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=162672), and am a little disappointed that most of the comments here are actually about manholes. Brainteaser interviews are an artifact of the fundamental problem: there's no easy way to identify good programmers, so people come up with these ersatz, dysfunctional substitutes instead. The brainteaser is a seductive one because it's easy to think "programmers are smart so let's test for smartness instead". This confuses a necessary condition with a sufficient one. It also begs the question, since smartness isn't easy to test for either. The concept of "smartness" underlying the brainteaser interview is a shallow one of the party-trick variety. I see no reason to believe that it's correlated with the kind of programmer I'd want to work with on a project. Brain-teasing opaqueness is not a good thing in production code, and real programming problems are not much like riddles. I also agree with your other point. Interviewers probing a programmer for "smartness", like a horse might have its teeth examined, or better, like a cow might have its udders palpitated - just feels unseemly to me. It's part of a corporate culture that is the modern version of the feudal system. It's the way you'd treat a peasant. The genius of the Larry-and-Sergey ad is that it speaks truthfully about this issue of respect, which is a very deep one, and of course is ultimately all about self-respect. (Look at some of the reactions to PG's lion metaphor to see just how true that is.) So large organizations have no reliable process for hiring good programmers. As Paul Graham's writings have articulated so clearly, the fact that they have that problem doesn't mean that you do; they need you more than you need them. There's actually a much better test for which programmers add value in the long run: the market itself. Pass that test and you won't have to ask anyone to approve of your "smartness".

by apathy 19y ago

gruseom 19y ago

I couldn't agree more. I think it's an asinine practice that, if it is in fact being discredited, deserves it. I posted this as an example of the brainteaser interview being discussed elsewhere (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=162672 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=162672), and am a little disappointed that most of the comments here are actually about manholes. Brainteaser interviews are an artifact of the fundamental problem: there's no easy way to identify good programmers, so people come up with these ersatz, dysfunctional substitutes instead. The brainteaser is a seductive one because it's easy to think "programmers are smart so let's test for smartness instead". This confuses a necessary condition with a sufficient one. It also begs the question, since smartness isn't easy to test for either. The concept of "smartness" underlying the brainteaser interview is a shallow one of the party-trick variety. I see no reason to believe that it's correlated with the kind of programmer I'd want to work with on a project. Brain-teasing opaqueness is not a good thing in production code, and real programming problems are not much like riddles. I also agree with your other point. Interviewers probing a programmer for "smartness", like a horse might have its teeth examined, or better, like a cow might have its udders palpitated - just feels unseemly to me. It's part of a corporate culture that is the modern version of the feudal system. It's the way you'd treat a peasant. The genius of the Larry-and-Sergey ad is that it speaks truthfully about this issue of respect, which is a very deep one, and of course is ultimately all about self-respect. (Look at some of the reactions to PG's lion metaphor to see just how true that is.) So large organizations have no reliable process for hiring good programmers. As Paul Graham's writings have articulated so clearly, the fact that they have that problem doesn't mean that you do; they need you more than you need them. There's actually a much better test for which programmers add value in the long run: the market itself. Pass that test and you won't have to ask anyone to approve of your "smartness".