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Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. Before I could solve

Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. Before I could solve your average programming riddle I scoffed at them. Now that I have some experience solving them I feel like it is truly a form of mind expanding knowledge and should be valued not only in hiring but in life in general.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. That's not an unpopular opinion among people who devote energy to solving programming riddles. The need to validate one's own life choices is a common cognitive bias, if nothing else.
- 21eleven 6y ago
  While we are all biased toward seeking to validate our own choices I believe it also can be said that some choices are more effective at producing a given outcome than others.
milquetoastaf 6y ago
Could you describe a time in your life when the knowledge gained from solving programming riddles impacted other parts of your life noticeably? I also very much enjoy solving these so-called "toy" problems but I can't say they've markedly improved my life aside from helping me get a job where I don't really use them. I've found that learning statistics and linear algebra provided me with more insight into decision making in my day-to-day than just straight algorithmic knowledge
Wazzymandias 6y ago
I think the problem is the industry standards and expectations for candidates. The fact that OP links an archive of interview questions is indicative of the underlying problem. Giving a candidate a problem they haven't seen before and observing their problem solving skills and mentality doesn't sound so bad on paper. However the process has been gamified and as a result the expectations for what a candidate should know and accomplish have increased. This ends up favoring younger candidates and/or fresh grads, since on average they can expend greater time and energy into studying for these types of interviews and their algorithms & data structure courses are still fresh in their minds. A more senior candidate or a person with more responsibilities outside of work (taking care of children, parents, etc) won't be able to invest as much time into studying these types of problems. The original purpose of the interview is also obfuscated - did the candidate genuinely show good problem solving skills or did they see the question before and merely memorized the solution? As a hiring manager I've seen multiple instances of the latter. I think the utility of spending time on these problems varies from person to person. I personally find it more useful to delve into distributed systems, cryptopgraphy, networking, or operating systems. These topics have made me a much better engineer and improved my problem solving skills, more so than programming riddles which gave me diminishing returns over time.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. That's not an unpopular opinion among people who devote energy to solving programming riddles. The need to validate one's own life choices is a common cognitive bias, if nothing else.

21eleven 6y ago
While we are all biased toward seeking to validate our own choices I believe it also can be said that some choices are more effective at producing a given outcome than others.

milquetoastaf 6y ago

Could you describe a time in your life when the knowledge gained from solving programming riddles impacted other parts of your life noticeably? I also very much enjoy solving these so-called "toy" problems but I can't say they've markedly improved my life aside from helping me get a job where I don't really use them. I've found that learning statistics and linear algebra provided me with more insight into decision making in my day-to-day than just straight algorithmic knowledge

Wazzymandias 6y ago

I think the problem is the industry standards and expectations for candidates. The fact that OP links an archive of interview questions is indicative of the underlying problem. Giving a candidate a problem they haven't seen before and observing their problem solving skills and mentality doesn't sound so bad on paper. However the process has been gamified and as a result the expectations for what a candidate should know and accomplish have increased. This ends up favoring younger candidates and/or fresh grads, since on average they can expend greater time and energy into studying for these types of interviews and their algorithms & data structure courses are still fresh in their minds. A more senior candidate or a person with more responsibilities outside of work (taking care of children, parents, etc) won't be able to invest as much time into studying these types of problems. The original purpose of the interview is also obfuscated - did the candidate genuinely show good problem solving skills or did they see the question before and merely memorized the solution? As a hiring manager I've seen multiple instances of the latter. I think the utility of spending time on these problems varies from person to person. I personally find it more useful to delve into distributed systems, cryptopgraphy, networking, or operating systems. These topics have made me a much better engineer and improved my problem solving skills, more so than programming riddles which gave me diminishing returns over time.