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> nobody ever uses any of that stuff they got quizzed on I’ve seen many threads on HN debating this, and I wonder if this actually matters. Isn’t the point of

> nobody ever uses any of that stuff they got quizzed on I’ve seen many threads on HN debating this, and I wonder if this actually matters. Isn’t the point of a good interview process to separate good candidates from bad with a few false positives and false negatives as possible? My understanding is that the “basics” are an effective filter for people who can build fundamental levels of understanding and therefore adapt to different challenges easily.

OJFord 5y ago
The complaint as I understand it is that if it's just supposed to be harder/more academic 'FizzBuzz', then it ought not to be something that requires revision, cramming prior to the interview (probably sufficient in itself! So what's it testing?) because it's not memorable/derivable after years of doing something different or that's built on top of abstractions on top of abstractions on top of abstractions on top of the question. But I've never actually had an interview like it (or I have I didn't realise/object to it myself) and discussions about it tend not to be particularly concrete. For example in the spirit of 'harder/more academic FizzBuzz', I think 'given this data structure, write a function to transform it or others like it into one that looks like this' is perfectly reasonable, but say 'in big-O terms, what's the best an algorithm to invert a binary tree can be? Write it' is a bit unfair for a job writing CRUD apps.
throwaway984393 5y ago
It's a filter, but not a particularly effective one. It just shows a human can act like a robot and memorize/regurgitate information. It doesn't show dynamic problem-solving skills (nobody at a real job is pressured to solve a complex problem in 30 minutes on a whiteboard, and most people should be asking their teammates or researching to find the best answers), interpersonal skills, communication skills, or the specific skillset needed for a specific role. You have no idea how this person is going to adapt to those challenges just by showing you an example of a linked list. It's also possible that interview challenge questions are the only thing the candidate knows.

OJFord 5y ago

The complaint as I understand it is that if it's just supposed to be harder/more academic 'FizzBuzz', then it ought not to be something that requires revision, cramming prior to the interview (probably sufficient in itself! So what's it testing?) because it's not memorable/derivable after years of doing something different or that's built on top of abstractions on top of abstractions on top of abstractions on top of the question. But I've never actually had an interview like it (or I have I didn't realise/object to it myself) and discussions about it tend not to be particularly concrete. For example in the spirit of 'harder/more academic FizzBuzz', I think 'given this data structure, write a function to transform it or others like it into one that looks like this' is perfectly reasonable, but say 'in big-O terms, what's the best an algorithm to invert a binary tree can be? Write it' is a bit unfair for a job writing CRUD apps.

throwaway984393 5y ago

It's a filter, but not a particularly effective one. It just shows a human can act like a robot and memorize/regurgitate information. It doesn't show dynamic problem-solving skills (nobody at a real job is pressured to solve a complex problem in 30 minutes on a whiteboard, and most people should be asking their teammates or researching to find the best answers), interpersonal skills, communication skills, or the specific skillset needed for a specific role. You have no idea how this person is going to adapt to those challenges just by showing you an example of a linked list. It's also possible that interview challenge questions are the only thing the candidate knows.