4 ms·

The writing for the statements of the three problems has some severe errors at the level of eighth grade English and Algebra I. No one very good at solving tho

The writing for the statements of the three problems has some severe errors at the level of eighth grade English and Algebra I. No one very good at solving those problems should spend their time on problems so poorly written. E.g., for the first, really serious, substantive error, in the first problem, the largest possible size or absolute value of each of the "N numbers" was not specified. Without any such specification, it is not possible to write solid code to solve the problem. The problems look like rotten bait on rusty hooks. I'm not biting. The third problem does have some cute contact with convexity that can be exploited to give a relatively fast algorithm. Will I write out the code? I will not! The problems suggest that writing the code is the main challenge, that if I could write the code then I would, and if I don't write the code then I can't and am shown to be unable and should be embarrassed. This suggestion is nonsense and an incompetent insult, and I'm not falling for that insult. My work in computing and computer science has passed reviews with competence far, far, FAR above that of what the problems show for Interview Street. Net, Interview Street is promising that its really bad house painters are the ones to pick someone to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel which is insulting nonsense. Besides, more important than the code would be the documentation that explained why the code is correct, but the problems are not seeking such explanations. So, the problems are a bad example of how to work in computing and a 'bummer'. Today I'm writing code to get a use of Windows Communications Foundation (WCF) working for the asynchronous 'remote procedure call' communications I need for the server farm for the Web site for my project. Yes, the third problem has some math, but my startup has at its core much more math, much more advanced, powerful, and valuable, and some nicely original. Besides, I have all such math for my startup in code ready for production so that at this point I just need to get code using WCF to connect together the asynchronous parts of my server farm and write a few more, simple Web pages to have code ready to go live. That is, WCF will so help me go live assuming, still open to question, that WCF is the 'right stuff' for my project; else I'll just write a TCP/IP sockets application. So, I have no time for puzzles with convexity with no business connection. Besides, who at Interview Street would actually understand the convexity exploitation? From the writing of the math in the questions, likely no one would! That is, people who write math as badly as in the problem statements have little chance of understanding the convexity math of the third problem. That is, the writing of the math indicates solidly that the writers know far too little math to understand the role of convexity in the third problem. Instead, it looks like Interview Street got the third problem from a textbook on, maybe, facility location and, then, made a mess of copying over the problem. So, the third problem is in facility location: Maybe I should call up one of my old facility location profs, J. Cohon, now President at CMU, or just get out my class notes! Or, with convexity, maybe I should get out my old notes on optimization. Besides, what employer would appreciate the role of convexity? Likely none. So, writing the code is a fool's errand. Life is awash in fools' errands to be avoided. No, to solve the third problem well, the main issue is actually not writing the code but exploiting the convexity; that I have noted this is likely a better 'solution' than most of what will be submitted. Indeed, any good solution will have to address the math of the convexity carefully and otherwise be just a lot of gibberish with no reason to believe in its value. Net, the third problem is not in computer science but in applied math; once again, computing, out'a gas, is looking to applied math for 'content' and is making a mess. My background is in applied math, especially for business problems. Given the math, the computing is routine! The coding ain't the main challenge, guys! Interview Street is illustrating a serious, fundamental problem with current computing: It doesn't know the difference between applied math and software. In particular, a good solution should not be in C, etc. but in TeX and is not 'code' but theorems and proof. Sorry 'bout that!

dfguo 15y ago
i think there are still tons of candidates who go to interviews but dont know how to code.(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...) As a fresh CS graduate, I feel like many of my classmates couldn't actually code, this would definitely help the companies to screen out people. Math is crucial for your startup and I hear that, but not all of the companies need intensive math. I do agree that those questions wouldn't sufficiently test real-world problem solving skills. But i guess companies could still do interviews after people passed the questions on the website.
- NY_Entrepreneur 15y ago
  "i think there are still tons of candidates who go to interviews but dont know how to code. ... As a fresh CS graduate, I feel like many of my classmates couldn't actually code, this would definitely help the companies to screen out people." Gads. Some parts of coding are easy. Some parts, say, understanding and having good experience with 3000 Web pages of .NET documentation at MSDN, can be more challenging! But even .NET is not difficult conceptually except in the many cases where the documentation sucks and the reader has to guess at what is going on to see how to use .NET. So, in simple terms, coding is easy. More generally, everything it takes to code a significant application now is challenging in several respects; even if all the respects are just routine, they can be a LOT of work. "Math is crucial for your startup and I hear that, but not all of the companies need intensive math." That's right: But the third test question is really about math, just math, instead of computing. So, as I said, the third question is an example of computing being out'a gas and looking at applied math for content. The third question has some cute applied math content but, in nearly all of current computing, not much relevance to getting a significant application running. My work, using math, is an exception: Still, I'm not tempted to do some applied math to get a solution to 'prove something' to Interview Street. So, point: The emphasis on math by Interview Street is not good, not even for me who likes math. Indeed, as I explained, likely the people at Interview Street are in over their heads and would not understand the math of a good solution to the third problem even if I programmed it and documented it. "I do agree that those questions wouldn't sufficiently test real-world problem solving skills. But i guess companies could still do interviews after people passed the questions on the website." The questions are worse than that: In my business, I'm into a lot of math, but even I don't like the questions for selecting people. For businesses not so into math, the questions are still worse. Net, the questions are just to 'select out' some people for no good reason. Indeed, there is good reason good people will refuse to answer the questions! So, the questions are dysfunctional and destructive. In slightly more advanced terms, common in testing in the social sciences, the questions have no 'validity', that is, don't accurately measure what we want measured! 'Validity' is a big, HUGE deal: E.g., the SAT and CEEB tests are supposed to be 'valid' measures of ability to do well at college work. The GRE tests are supposed to be the same for graduate work. Etc. for GMAT, LSAT, etc. Establishing 'validity' for these tests was NOT easy. Generally establishing validity is not easy. More likely 'valid' is what several posts in this thread have mentioned: Show me the working significant, practical, valuable application! Once get validity handled, then we have to move on to 'reliability' which is essentially the 'variance' or 'accuracy' of the 'estimator' being considered. Or, in terms of mathematical statistics, the 'test' is an estimator of something we want to know, and 'validity' is the statistical 'bias' of the estimator and 'reliability' is it's variance (or the square root of the variance, that is, the standard deviation, if we prefer). Here is the ugly side of Interview Street: (1) The programming of their Web site sucks. We wouldn't want to hire the people who developed that Web site. (2) The writing and the math in the presentation of the questions sucks. We don't want people evaluated in such content by people who have shown such low quality work with such content. (3) The questions are heavily from just applied math (done poorly) with next to no 'face validity' at anything important for the intended purpose of recruiting 'rock star' hackers or whatever was the coveted goal. (4) In the applied math, especially in the third question, they are likely in over their head and would not understand a good solution if they saw it. Interview Street needs to clean up their act: Clean up their Web site, clean up their problem statements, make the questions relevant to the stated recruiting goals, and pay at least some attention to at least 'face validity' of the questions. Really, these questions are the same song, second verse, of some Google HR nonsense as in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2801226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2801226 For the companies recruiting, recruiting challenges are well known: The 'HR' people want to be central in recruiting, and there my analogy of the absurdity of having house painters looking for Michelangelo to paint the ceiling in on target. As a broad rule, under no circumstances should anyone in HR ever, on threat of immediate dismissal, mention anything technical to an employment candidate! Instead, HR people can smile, be nice, talk about the weather, offer coffee, tea, and soft drinks, help with travel and lodging reservations, help make reimbursement or cash advances easy, help with names and titles of people the candidate meets, explain the interview schedule, offer names and titles of people in HR for continuing contacts, be sure the candidate has enough rest time and a nice lunch, try to get the candidate a meeting with someone the candidate might know, pass out a benefits packet, indicate where the rest room is, smile, be nice, offer some fancy snacks, smile, be nice. Did I mention smile and be nice?

dfguo 15y ago

i think there are still tons of candidates who go to interviews but dont know how to code.(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...) As a fresh CS graduate, I feel like many of my classmates couldn't actually code, this would definitely help the companies to screen out people. Math is crucial for your startup and I hear that, but not all of the companies need intensive math. I do agree that those questions wouldn't sufficiently test real-world problem solving skills. But i guess companies could still do interviews after people passed the questions on the website.

NY_Entrepreneur 15y ago
"i think there are still tons of candidates who go to interviews but dont know how to code. ... As a fresh CS graduate, I feel like many of my classmates couldn't actually code, this would definitely help the companies to screen out people." Gads. Some parts of coding are easy. Some parts, say, understanding and having good experience with 3000 Web pages of .NET documentation at MSDN, can be more challenging! But even .NET is not difficult conceptually except in the many cases where the documentation sucks and the reader has to guess at what is going on to see how to use .NET. So, in simple terms, coding is easy. More generally, everything it takes to code a significant application now is challenging in several respects; even if all the respects are just routine, they can be a LOT of work. "Math is crucial for your startup and I hear that, but not all of the companies need intensive math." That's right: But the third test question is really about math, just math, instead of computing. So, as I said, the third question is an example of computing being out'a gas and looking at applied math for content. The third question has some cute applied math content but, in nearly all of current computing, not much relevance to getting a significant application running. My work, using math, is an exception: Still, I'm not tempted to do some applied math to get a solution to 'prove something' to Interview Street. So, point: The emphasis on math by Interview Street is not good, not even for me who likes math. Indeed, as I explained, likely the people at Interview Street are in over their heads and would not understand the math of a good solution to the third problem even if I programmed it and documented it. "I do agree that those questions wouldn't sufficiently test real-world problem solving skills. But i guess companies could still do interviews after people passed the questions on the website." The questions are worse than that: In my business, I'm into a lot of math, but even I don't like the questions for selecting people. For businesses not so into math, the questions are still worse. Net, the questions are just to 'select out' some people for no good reason. Indeed, there is good reason good people will refuse to answer the questions! So, the questions are dysfunctional and destructive. In slightly more advanced terms, common in testing in the social sciences, the questions have no 'validity', that is, don't accurately measure what we want measured! 'Validity' is a big, HUGE deal: E.g., the SAT and CEEB tests are supposed to be 'valid' measures of ability to do well at college work. The GRE tests are supposed to be the same for graduate work. Etc. for GMAT, LSAT, etc. Establishing 'validity' for these tests was NOT easy. Generally establishing validity is not easy. More likely 'valid' is what several posts in this thread have mentioned: Show me the working significant, practical, valuable application! Once get validity handled, then we have to move on to 'reliability' which is essentially the 'variance' or 'accuracy' of the 'estimator' being considered. Or, in terms of mathematical statistics, the 'test' is an estimator of something we want to know, and 'validity' is the statistical 'bias' of the estimator and 'reliability' is it's variance (or the square root of the variance, that is, the standard deviation, if we prefer). Here is the ugly side of Interview Street: (1) The programming of their Web site sucks. We wouldn't want to hire the people who developed that Web site. (2) The writing and the math in the presentation of the questions sucks. We don't want people evaluated in such content by people who have shown such low quality work with such content. (3) The questions are heavily from just applied math (done poorly) with next to no 'face validity' at anything important for the intended purpose of recruiting 'rock star' hackers or whatever was the coveted goal. (4) In the applied math, especially in the third question, they are likely in over their head and would not understand a good solution if they saw it. Interview Street needs to clean up their act: Clean up their Web site, clean up their problem statements, make the questions relevant to the stated recruiting goals, and pay at least some attention to at least 'face validity' of the questions. Really, these questions are the same song, second verse, of some Google HR nonsense as in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2801226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2801226 For the companies recruiting, recruiting challenges are well known: The 'HR' people want to be central in recruiting, and there my analogy of the absurdity of having house painters looking for Michelangelo to paint the ceiling in on target. As a broad rule, under no circumstances should anyone in HR ever, on threat of immediate dismissal, mention anything technical to an employment candidate! Instead, HR people can smile, be nice, talk about the weather, offer coffee, tea, and soft drinks, help with travel and lodging reservations, help make reimbursement or cash advances easy, help with names and titles of people the candidate meets, explain the interview schedule, offer names and titles of people in HR for continuing contacts, be sure the candidate has enough rest time and a nice lunch, try to get the candidate a meeting with someone the candidate might know, pass out a benefits packet, indicate where the rest room is, smile, be nice, offer some fancy snacks, smile, be nice. Did I mention smile and be nice?