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I'm 36. I interviewed in last 10 years probably more than 250 candidates. Young programmers. Imagine that more than half couldn't explain what is the difference

I'm 36. I interviewed in last 10 years probably more than 250 candidates. Young programmers. Imagine that more than half couldn't explain what is the difference between queue and stack. There is maybe 1 in 10 or 50 Young devs that had luck to work in something like good dev agency and build serveral projects to gain needed experience. For me age doesn't matter that much because: * You could be 50 and worked on 2-3 projects entire life * You could be 30 and worked on 25 projects or more.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
> Imagine that more than half couldn't explain what is the difference between queue and stack > There is maybe 1 in 10 or 50 Young devs that had luck to work in something like good dev agency and build serveral projects to gain needed experience This seems like it's implying that knowing the difference between a Queue and a Stack is a good indicator of experience. How do you figure that as a good signal?
- thelean12 6y ago
  It's not a good indicator of experience. But it's probably a decent indicator of a lack of experience. Queue vs stack is an extremely basic concept. They're not even unique terms to CS. You can almost guess what they are just by their names.
  - jakuboboza 6y ago
    Exactly this. You don't have to be 180 IQ to solve it. There is no trick in this question. Much better than asking for FizzBuzz implementation.
dgellow 6y ago
You could take any of those young dev, teach them what a stack and a queue are in almost no time. The fact that they didn’t face that question before doesn’t mean they are bad picks for a job.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  They will have to learn fundamentals on your dime. How is that a better choice than an older individual that already knows this shit and on top of that "in almost no time" is capable of learning too, you know.
- jakuboboza 6y ago
  With that logic the whole point of interview is invalid. Because you can take anyone and teach them what to do :) Imho the idea of simple question is to check basic understanding of data structures. It is not about checking if someone can apply to some problem red-black tree... Queue and Stack are basic things every programmer imho will know no matter what time of the day or night it is.
SamuelAdams 6y ago
> what is the difference between queue and stack To be fair, I've been programming enterprise systems for 6 years now and haven't been interviewing in at least 18 months. This question threw me off. Once I googled it and read a whole two paragraphs it jarred my memory and I can speak to it. I can speak to what they do and when I would use one or the other. I can also reference real-world situations where I implemented a queue or a stack. But lately I've been knee deep in data analytics for the last 18 months and simply haven't touched those "queue / stack" tools in a while. So I needed a "quick lookup" to refresh my memory. Now if I was actively interviewing, this might be something I would review, as it's a fairly common interview question.
- silveroriole 6y ago
  Isn’t the clue in the name? :) I feel like it’s almost a mind trick. Ask anyone off the street what the difference is between a queue of people and a stack of plates, and they’d get the right answer pretty quick - but ask a tech person in an interview and they’ll panic! (Which probably proves it’s not a very good example to judge applicants by on its own)
tomohawk 6y ago
Perhaps instead pose a problem where a queue and a stack would normally be used and have them solve it and explain their solution. You can tell a lot more about someone than asking a context free question on theoretical constructs. Is it more important to have someone who approaches a problem theoretically or practically?

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

> Imagine that more than half couldn't explain what is the difference between queue and stack > There is maybe 1 in 10 or 50 Young devs that had luck to work in something like good dev agency and build serveral projects to gain needed experience This seems like it's implying that knowing the difference between a Queue and a Stack is a good indicator of experience. How do you figure that as a good signal?

thelean12 6y ago
It's not a good indicator of experience. But it's probably a decent indicator of a lack of experience. Queue vs stack is an extremely basic concept. They're not even unique terms to CS. You can almost guess what they are just by their names.
- jakuboboza 6y ago
  Exactly this. You don't have to be 180 IQ to solve it. There is no trick in this question. Much better than asking for FizzBuzz implementation.

dgellow 6y ago

You could take any of those young dev, teach them what a stack and a queue are in almost no time. The fact that they didn’t face that question before doesn’t mean they are bad picks for a job.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago
They will have to learn fundamentals on your dime. How is that a better choice than an older individual that already knows this shit and on top of that "in almost no time" is capable of learning too, you know.
jakuboboza 6y ago
With that logic the whole point of interview is invalid. Because you can take anyone and teach them what to do :) Imho the idea of simple question is to check basic understanding of data structures. It is not about checking if someone can apply to some problem red-black tree... Queue and Stack are basic things every programmer imho will know no matter what time of the day or night it is.

SamuelAdams 6y ago

> what is the difference between queue and stack To be fair, I've been programming enterprise systems for 6 years now and haven't been interviewing in at least 18 months. This question threw me off. Once I googled it and read a whole two paragraphs it jarred my memory and I can speak to it. I can speak to what they do and when I would use one or the other. I can also reference real-world situations where I implemented a queue or a stack. But lately I've been knee deep in data analytics for the last 18 months and simply haven't touched those "queue / stack" tools in a while. So I needed a "quick lookup" to refresh my memory. Now if I was actively interviewing, this might be something I would review, as it's a fairly common interview question.

silveroriole 6y ago
Isn’t the clue in the name? :) I feel like it’s almost a mind trick. Ask anyone off the street what the difference is between a queue of people and a stack of plates, and they’d get the right answer pretty quick - but ask a tech person in an interview and they’ll panic! (Which probably proves it’s not a very good example to judge applicants by on its own)

tomohawk 6y ago

Perhaps instead pose a problem where a queue and a stack would normally be used and have them solve it and explain their solution. You can tell a lot more about someone than asking a context free question on theoretical constructs. Is it more important to have someone who approaches a problem theoretically or practically?