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I Hate Puzzles: Am I Still A Programmer?
- papaf 16y agoI finished my PhD and have failed to get interviewed for positions because I'm also bad at puzzles and algorithm tests. Reading this article made me sigh in relief. Like the author, I was a developer for many years before returning to Education. I designed a few algorithms in that time and I always had days rather than 1/4 hour to think it through. Ironically, getting a PhD is solving a puzzle - just one that takes years to crack. As I see it now, the puzzles are a 'fitness function' being used to select the best candidates. In genetic algorithms, fitness functions tend to be compromises which eventually lead to a population that aren't quite what was intended. Time will tell if this is the case with the current selection process.
- pmichaud 16y agoI really enjoy the creation aspect of coding in the same sense I enjoy painting, but I do not like "puzzles" in the sense of there being one answer and I have to fiddle with shit until I get it. I always felt like I was in the minority of programmers with that attitude.