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Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting alg

Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting algorithms, sure.

cheschire 8y ago
You could just ask the candidate to explain how to use modulus correctly, and not even need to break out the markers.
- cblum 8y ago
  That sets the bar too low for screening IMO. My wife has interviewed people who literally can't write a for loop correctly.
- robocat 8y ago
  Modulus is a rabbit hole - the mod operator has different behaviour for negative parameters depending on the language (and presumably other language specific quirks?) Here's another one: when does the abs operator return a negative number?
  - cheschire 8y ago
    Why make it a trivia game? Explaining the basics of how modulus SHOULD work is a fairly generic concept that is trivial for a lot of coders to describe, but impossible for non-coders. It's an ice-breaker.
    - bdhess 8y ago
      Modular arithmetic ought to be explainable by anyone who’s studied basic number theory. Not just coders.
    - codyb 8y ago
      Hmm, everytime I use modulus I need to double check whether it returns the number of times wholly divisible or the remainder. I'm thinking the former without checking now. Meanwhile, my last project has been to set up an entirely self hosted CI/CD pipeline using digital ocean, docker, jenkins, gitea, and docker registry to make changes to my websites I build with erlang, react, html and sass, so I _think_ I can create projects! (No guarantees). The interview process is tough, and what do you want to root out more false negatives or false positives? It may depend on the size of the company. Google can probably shell out a few bucks to some putz who sounds impressive but isn't in the hopes they'll nab a few more great engineers at the loss of a few paychecks. An early phase startup may not have that luxury. Edit: must be tired since just thinking about fizzbuzz for two seconds clearly gives me the answer to what modulus returns ;-)
      - dodobirdlord 8y ago
        > Google can probably shell out a few bucks to some putz who sounds impressive but isn't in the hopes they'll nab a few more great engineers at the loss of a few paychecks. They actually take the opposite approach. Supposedly there is compelling research that low-performing members of a team provide large negative contribution to team performance from knock-on effects of their low standards and low quality work. Google has consequentially structured their interview process to minimize false positives rather than false negatives so as to minimize firings and the associated psychological stress caused by working in an environment in which people are regularly fired.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    The differing behavior is because some of those implement remainder instead of modulus: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-difference-between-mod-and-remainder https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-diffe...
- Sir_Substance 8y ago
  Fizzbuzz is not really about testing someones understanding of a modulus operator, it would be very easy to make an alternate fizzbuzz that does not require using modulus, and arguably anyone hiring for a large company should have their own as fizzbuzz is pretty widely known. The point of fizzbuzz though is to make someone create a very simple algorithm on the spot. In my experience, there are some people in this world who simply lack the ability to structure their thoughts and plans into a complete set of ordered instructions. That's why you sometimes find recipes online that follow a structure like: 1. Dice the onions 2. Brown the mince for 5 minutes 3. But first, add the onions and tomato paste to the mince It's the same personality type that cleans a room by walking backwards and forwards to the cupboard of cleaning supplies as they need them rather than grabbing all the cleaning supplies they can predict needing first. Now, everyone does these kinds of things to a certain extent, but you can't program anything significant if you can't drop into an ordered mindset on command. Fizzbuzz tests your ability to do that without requiring you to know any apis or frameworks or computer science or even a programming language, since you can just as easily do it in psudocode.
yogthos 8y ago
Yup, my experience is that FizzBuzz level complexity is roughly what you want for interview problems. I find that and some questions about algorithms and data structures tell you all you need to know.
anotherevan 8y ago
I remember a colleague who was affronted at being asked to do Fizzbuzz. I told him it was just a simple screen for fraudsters and bullshit artists and not to take it personally, they didn't know him from Adam, after all. http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/dont-overthink-fizzbuzz.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/dont-overthink-fizzbuzz....
- wyldfire 8y ago
  Was the affront that it was too easy? Believe it or not, it weeds out candidates.
  - anotherevan 8y ago
    I think, because he didn't understand the purpose, he saw it as poor company interviewing to make him jump though that sort of crap. Once he understood it was just a simple screening mechanism because of the high number of dodgy applicants, he calmed down.

Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting algorithms, sure.

cheschire 8y ago

You could just ask the candidate to explain how to use modulus correctly, and not even need to break out the markers.

cblum 8y ago
That sets the bar too low for screening IMO. My wife has interviewed people who literally can't write a for loop correctly.
robocat 8y ago
Modulus is a rabbit hole - the mod operator has different behaviour for negative parameters depending on the language (and presumably other language specific quirks?) Here's another one: when does the abs operator return a negative number?
- cheschire 8y ago
  Why make it a trivia game? Explaining the basics of how modulus SHOULD work is a fairly generic concept that is trivial for a lot of coders to describe, but impossible for non-coders. It's an ice-breaker.
  - bdhess 8y ago
    Modular arithmetic ought to be explainable by anyone who’s studied basic number theory. Not just coders.
  - codyb 8y ago
    Hmm, everytime I use modulus I need to double check whether it returns the number of times wholly divisible or the remainder. I'm thinking the former without checking now. Meanwhile, my last project has been to set up an entirely self hosted CI/CD pipeline using digital ocean, docker, jenkins, gitea, and docker registry to make changes to my websites I build with erlang, react, html and sass, so I _think_ I can create projects! (No guarantees). The interview process is tough, and what do you want to root out more false negatives or false positives? It may depend on the size of the company. Google can probably shell out a few bucks to some putz who sounds impressive but isn't in the hopes they'll nab a few more great engineers at the loss of a few paychecks. An early phase startup may not have that luxury. Edit: must be tired since just thinking about fizzbuzz for two seconds clearly gives me the answer to what modulus returns ;-)
    - dodobirdlord 8y ago
      > Google can probably shell out a few bucks to some putz who sounds impressive but isn't in the hopes they'll nab a few more great engineers at the loss of a few paychecks. They actually take the opposite approach. Supposedly there is compelling research that low-performing members of a team provide large negative contribution to team performance from knock-on effects of their low standards and low quality work. Google has consequentially structured their interview process to minimize false positives rather than false negatives so as to minimize firings and the associated psychological stress caused by working in an environment in which people are regularly fired.
- Izkata 8y ago
  The differing behavior is because some of those implement remainder instead of modulus: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-difference-between-mod-and-remainder https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-diffe...
Sir_Substance 8y ago
Fizzbuzz is not really about testing someones understanding of a modulus operator, it would be very easy to make an alternate fizzbuzz that does not require using modulus, and arguably anyone hiring for a large company should have their own as fizzbuzz is pretty widely known. The point of fizzbuzz though is to make someone create a very simple algorithm on the spot. In my experience, there are some people in this world who simply lack the ability to structure their thoughts and plans into a complete set of ordered instructions. That's why you sometimes find recipes online that follow a structure like: 1. Dice the onions 2. Brown the mince for 5 minutes 3. But first, add the onions and tomato paste to the mince It's the same personality type that cleans a room by walking backwards and forwards to the cupboard of cleaning supplies as they need them rather than grabbing all the cleaning supplies they can predict needing first. Now, everyone does these kinds of things to a certain extent, but you can't program anything significant if you can't drop into an ordered mindset on command. Fizzbuzz tests your ability to do that without requiring you to know any apis or frameworks or computer science or even a programming language, since you can just as easily do it in psudocode.

yogthos 8y ago

Yup, my experience is that FizzBuzz level complexity is roughly what you want for interview problems. I find that and some questions about algorithms and data structures tell you all you need to know.

anotherevan 8y ago

I remember a colleague who was affronted at being asked to do Fizzbuzz. I told him it was just a simple screen for fraudsters and bullshit artists and not to take it personally, they didn't know him from Adam, after all. http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/dont-overthink-fizzbuzz.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/dont-overthink-fizzbuzz....

wyldfire 8y ago
Was the affront that it was too easy? Believe it or not, it weeds out candidates.
- anotherevan 8y ago
  I think, because he didn't understand the purpose, he saw it as poor company interviewing to make him jump though that sort of crap. Once he understood it was just a simple screening mechanism because of the high number of dodgy applicants, he calmed down.