5 ms·

I'm guessing you didn't get to do this interactively? If I interviewed someone and they seemed knew something I didn't and could prove it by actually running th

by cliffy 7y ago

I'm guessing you didn't get to do this interactively? If I interviewed someone and they seemed knew something I didn't and could prove it by actually running the query/code I would be impressed. At the very least the interviewer should have checked your claim after the interview if they were skeptical. I think it's a real mistake when you don't let candidates write actual code and run it during interviews.

phpnode 7y ago
In my FB interview I was told I wasn't allowed to run the code, which seemed completely ridiculous to me. It was even more frustrating when my interviewer told me I'd missed an edge case when I was certain I'd covered it - I'm still not sure who was right.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  At least you got to type your code. I had to write mine out on a whiteboard (actually, a patch of wall with whiteboard paint).
  - bootlooped 7y ago
    I went to an interview where there were no spare computers, so I was asked to write out a blackjack game in Java with pencil and paper. That was a lot worse than any of the whiteboard ones I've had.
    - wolco 7y ago
      Reminds me of programming tests at my college.
    - 420codebro 7y ago
      Fuck all these losers. I'm not kidding. They can get fucking aids and die at this point holy shit.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
Correct, it was a "remote whiteboarding session". It has made me absolutely loathe non-interactive sessions. Not being able to run the actual code is ridiculous. Some of the best analysts and programmers I know of are "architecture guys/gals" who can create complex systems but may not knock out the actual code so quickly, or, as I like to call it "error message programmers". Creating an interview test to weed out otherwise-intelligent "error message programmers" is, in my book, poor interview construction.
- MrLeap 7y ago
  This is me. I've used so many different programming languages over the years that for the first week of any new project, I am definitely an error message programmer. It goes something like this on day#1 Okay, I need to iterate through a collection. Which is it again? foreach (int element in elements), no that's C#. for (int element : elements) .. nope that's java for (var element in elements) .. There we go. Probably wouldn't exactly go like this, I know js isn't typed when I sit down to write it. (except for when it is!) ;) Regardless, I call this my "tooling up" period. Each day i'm faster, and it takes about a week to get to 100%. but then I'm golden until the project is done and I inevitably have to switch techs again. I probably need to flex more than specialists in interviews because of this. Whenever pseudo code is on the menu I breath a sigh of relief.
  - ShakataGaNai 7y ago
    I'm with you on this, even beyond the first week. Been doing primarily Python for more than a year now and sometimes I still slide back to my Perl days and write the C-style for.
    - petre 7y ago
      Perl has foreach which can iterate over ranges, arrays, lists and is synonymous with for, yet works just like foreach (that's Perl just being Perl).
  - mjevans 7y ago
    This is why the real-tests should be entirely in pseudo-code and about the logical structure. Any optimization should happen after a basic algorithm that works and might go along the lines of (telemetry suggests our platform has a bottleneck here) how would you speed things up if there's an issue in this section?

by cliffy 7y ago

phpnode 7y ago

In my FB interview I was told I wasn't allowed to run the code, which seemed completely ridiculous to me. It was even more frustrating when my interviewer told me I'd missed an edge case when I was certain I'd covered it - I'm still not sure who was right.

vonmoltke 7y ago
At least you got to type your code. I had to write mine out on a whiteboard (actually, a patch of wall with whiteboard paint).
- bootlooped 7y ago
  I went to an interview where there were no spare computers, so I was asked to write out a blackjack game in Java with pencil and paper. That was a lot worse than any of the whiteboard ones I've had.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Reminds me of programming tests at my college.
  - 420codebro 7y ago
    Fuck all these losers. I'm not kidding. They can get fucking aids and die at this point holy shit.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

Correct, it was a "remote whiteboarding session". It has made me absolutely loathe non-interactive sessions. Not being able to run the actual code is ridiculous. Some of the best analysts and programmers I know of are "architecture guys/gals" who can create complex systems but may not knock out the actual code so quickly, or, as I like to call it "error message programmers". Creating an interview test to weed out otherwise-intelligent "error message programmers" is, in my book, poor interview construction.

MrLeap 7y ago
This is me. I've used so many different programming languages over the years that for the first week of any new project, I am definitely an error message programmer. It goes something like this on day#1 Okay, I need to iterate through a collection. Which is it again? foreach (int element in elements), no that's C#. for (int element : elements) .. nope that's java for (var element in elements) .. There we go. Probably wouldn't exactly go like this, I know js isn't typed when I sit down to write it. (except for when it is!) ;) Regardless, I call this my "tooling up" period. Each day i'm faster, and it takes about a week to get to 100%. but then I'm golden until the project is done and I inevitably have to switch techs again. I probably need to flex more than specialists in interviews because of this. Whenever pseudo code is on the menu I breath a sigh of relief.
- ShakataGaNai 7y ago
  I'm with you on this, even beyond the first week. Been doing primarily Python for more than a year now and sometimes I still slide back to my Perl days and write the C-style for.
  - petre 7y ago
    Perl has foreach which can iterate over ranges, arrays, lists and is synonymous with for, yet works just like foreach (that's Perl just being Perl).
- mjevans 7y ago
  This is why the real-tests should be entirely in pseudo-code and about the logical structure. Any optimization should happen after a basic algorithm that works and might go along the lines of (telemetry suggests our platform has a bottleneck here) how would you speed things up if there's an issue in this section?