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Am I the only who stopped reading when the author outlined their question? How many games of tic tac toe are “valid”? What does valid mean? As usual the probl

Am I the only who stopped reading when the author outlined their question? How many games of tic tac toe are “valid”? What does valid mean? As usual the problem with hiring software isn’t measuring “talent” “iq” or “personality”. These things are arbitrary, it’s communicating business needs to an engineer and having the engineer build the system based on the needs of said business. As always the issue is communication, and the author makes it clear despite him thinking long and hard he’s not able to effectively communicate what the interviewer actually wants. Edit... Upon reading through the comments and seeing everyone having a different answer, simply proves my point.

abecedarius 6y ago
He did say the interviewee can ask questions freely. My question would've been whether to count symmetrical positions as distinct, but otherwise I'm not seeing any particular ambiguity.
yellowstuff 6y ago
I don't totally agree with the article, but I think it's totally fine to give an ambiguous question in an interview, to see how the candidate handles it. Almost every real world project will involve ambiguous instructions. Obviously you don't want to penalize the candidate for not reading your mind and guessing the definition you had in mind. But I do think it's fair to give extra credit to candidates who notice the ambiguity and ask for clarification. Done well, an ambiguous question can be an opportunity for a candidate to demonstrate a strength, rather than a trick to unfairly penalize someone.