4 ms·

Forget syntax bad. Forget algorithms bad. I regularly look things like that up. I am a builder and a problem solver, not a reference manual.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
"I'm not a reference manual." I'm going try to remember that to use in an interview some time when I don't know something off the top of my head, and they get in my face for it.
- pbourke 8y ago
  You probably wouldn’t want to work anywhere where people get in your face for not knowing something off the top of your head. The three phrases I wish that I heard more frequently at work are “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure” and “Do you have any ideas?”
vvanders 8y ago
I love to flip that around in an interview before it even comes up, one of the 3 things I start out any interview with is: "I'm your Google, anything you'd need to look up just ask me and I'll give you the answer". Great way to take the pressure off plus it gives you a good idea on how well they ask questions/are comfortable leaning on others. It's a huge plus if I can get a reasonable candidate to admit that there might be parts of the problem at hand they don't understand.
- dblohm7 8y ago
  I love this! Thanks for sharing!
- wst_ 8y ago
  This is fantastic. Often I am wondering should we start test how good engineers are in asking questions for search engines. I am not going to write the perfect compilable code for them, I have a tools to tell me if I forgot the semicolon in line 31. I don't need to remember standard library 100% and recall all functions' signatures - I have a docs for that. But I should be able to ask meaningful questions that get me closer to the answer and I should do it efficiently. We have tools now, we should start using it instead of memorizing things.
animal531 8y ago
Well said. I've written code tests where I'm expected to read the code, find the issues and fix them on paper. But when they take it too far beyond the spirit of what I believe to be a reasonable test of understanding and fixing code, then I write that I'd just for example compile the program and look at the output. The companies that are most into questions like these seem to be the classic (failing agile) body shops with ridiculous turnover of their talent, which causes them to have to interview even more, which causes in turn for their tests to become even more abstract and worthless.
gscott 8y ago
I have a long text file that I copy and paste out of that has pretty much everything I ever do from read/write from databases to displaying data 90% of everything I do is a variation of the same thing.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

"I'm not a reference manual." I'm going try to remember that to use in an interview some time when I don't know something off the top of my head, and they get in my face for it.

pbourke 8y ago
You probably wouldn’t want to work anywhere where people get in your face for not knowing something off the top of your head. The three phrases I wish that I heard more frequently at work are “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure” and “Do you have any ideas?”

vvanders 8y ago

I love to flip that around in an interview before it even comes up, one of the 3 things I start out any interview with is: "I'm your Google, anything you'd need to look up just ask me and I'll give you the answer". Great way to take the pressure off plus it gives you a good idea on how well they ask questions/are comfortable leaning on others. It's a huge plus if I can get a reasonable candidate to admit that there might be parts of the problem at hand they don't understand.

dblohm7 8y ago
I love this! Thanks for sharing!
wst_ 8y ago
This is fantastic. Often I am wondering should we start test how good engineers are in asking questions for search engines. I am not going to write the perfect compilable code for them, I have a tools to tell me if I forgot the semicolon in line 31. I don't need to remember standard library 100% and recall all functions' signatures - I have a docs for that. But I should be able to ask meaningful questions that get me closer to the answer and I should do it efficiently. We have tools now, we should start using it instead of memorizing things.

animal531 8y ago

Well said. I've written code tests where I'm expected to read the code, find the issues and fix them on paper. But when they take it too far beyond the spirit of what I believe to be a reasonable test of understanding and fixing code, then I write that I'd just for example compile the program and look at the output. The companies that are most into questions like these seem to be the classic (failing agile) body shops with ridiculous turnover of their talent, which causes them to have to interview even more, which causes in turn for their tests to become even more abstract and worthless.

gscott 8y ago

I have a long text file that I copy and paste out of that has pretty much everything I ever do from read/write from databases to displaying data 90% of everything I do is a variation of the same thing.