4 ms·

Perhaps the alternative explanation is not that they cannot do FizzBuzz at all, but choke under stress when they are asked to code a simplest thing in the inter

by rl1987 6y ago

Perhaps the alternative explanation is not that they cannot do FizzBuzz at all, but choke under stress when they are asked to code a simplest thing in the interview setting?

kqr 6y ago
While that is a real problem, and I completely flunked my whiteboard coding test for my current job (they liked me anyway, appparently!) I have observed "senior software developers" who fail at FizzBuzz even when they can write it in their home, on their own time, in their own editor, using their preferred language. These are people who likely happened to be "lucky" and rose through to management/team lead positions before they had time to truly learn the details of programming, and then they spent years dealing at higher levels of abstraction and their foundational knowledge atrophied. The number of expert beginners[1] in our field might surprise you. [1]: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...
- hyperman1 6y ago
  I've seen plenty of bad FizzBuzzers, but in general they are not very good at the higher levels of abstraction either. In my experience, they can talk the talk, and make sure the have a new job before the shit hits the fan. Which at that level might take 2-5 years, the timeframe for a major new application to completely develop.
  - kqr 6y ago
    Yes. I deliberately avoided saying anything about how well they handle these higher levels of abstraction. ;) I believe knowing the fundamentals is critical for being able to reason well about the higher levels of abstraction. As Alan Perlis put it back in 1968: > In a situation where code actually has to be produced, nobody should be allowed in the system who doesn’t write some given number of lines of code per month. I think that one of the major problems with the very large programming projects has been the lack of competence in programming which one observes as soon as one goes above the very bottom level. He goes on to propose a scheme were people at all levels in the development effort get some time to get their hands dirty on a rotating schedule. That sounds very sensible, in my opinion.

by rl1987 6y ago

Perhaps the alternative explanation is not that they cannot do FizzBuzz at all, but choke under stress when they are asked to code a simplest thing in the interview setting?

kqr 6y ago

While that is a real problem, and I completely flunked my whiteboard coding test for my current job (they liked me anyway, appparently!) I have observed "senior software developers" who fail at FizzBuzz even when they can write it in their home, on their own time, in their own editor, using their preferred language. These are people who likely happened to be "lucky" and rose through to management/team lead positions before they had time to truly learn the details of programming, and then they spent years dealing at higher levels of abstraction and their foundational knowledge atrophied. The number of expert beginners[1] in our field might surprise you. [1]: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...

hyperman1 6y ago
I've seen plenty of bad FizzBuzzers, but in general they are not very good at the higher levels of abstraction either. In my experience, they can talk the talk, and make sure the have a new job before the shit hits the fan. Which at that level might take 2-5 years, the timeframe for a major new application to completely develop.
- kqr 6y ago
  Yes. I deliberately avoided saying anything about how well they handle these higher levels of abstraction. ;) I believe knowing the fundamentals is critical for being able to reason well about the higher levels of abstraction. As Alan Perlis put it back in 1968: > In a situation where code actually has to be produced, nobody should be allowed in the system who doesn’t write some given number of lines of code per month. I think that one of the major problems with the very large programming projects has been the lack of competence in programming which one observes as soon as one goes above the very bottom level. He goes on to propose a scheme were people at all levels in the development effort get some time to get their hands dirty on a rotating schedule. That sounds very sensible, in my opinion.