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> However, I have no single idea what is FizzBuzz, and if someone asks me to do it an interview, I would fail miserably. I'd suggest actually looking up what f

> However, I have no single idea what is FizzBuzz, and if someone asks me to do it an interview, I would fail miserably. I'd suggest actually looking up what fizz buzz is before making that claim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizz_buzz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizz_buzz I like it as an interview question because it gives insight into the candidate's thought process. I'm not as concerned that the resulting code works. My approach is to explain fizz buzz, hand the candidate a computer, ensure they have the tools they're comfortable with, and tell them to use whatever resources they need. Copy and pasting code from the Wiki page wouldn't be the worst that I've seen (and would be 100% acceptable to me if the candidate can explain what the code does). Write it in BF for all I care, as long as you can explain what it does and (ideally) run it. At one job a few candidates stood out. I was running late as usual, so I popped in, realized I'd forgotten my notebook in my car, and went back to grab it. By the time I returned the candidate had literally run out of the office. One candidate wanted to impress us with his bash skills and got completely flummoxed trying to figure out how to implement the modulo operation in bash. What really stood out about the candidate we hired was that they reviewed the code and then ran it to verify the correct behavior before handing the computer back to me. They were the only candidate to do that.

rockemsockem 4y ago
I really hope you (or someone else in your interview loop) asks another question besides FizzBuzz.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  I'm not quite sure where you got the impression that fizz buzz is the only interview question that got asked. I'm fairly process oriented so I find a lot of value in observing how someone works. But at some point it's just not worth it to proceed further. I like fizz buzz because it's both a good low pass filter and a good jumping off point for further discussion. If you can't read the Wiki entry and wrap your head around fizz buzz, you're probably not a good fit. If you can then there's the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions (e.g. why did you choose this language, how would you test this, what would you do differently) and maybe even move on to a more complex program. For the one candidate who struggled with bash, we started offering input around the ten minute mark. Stuff like "is there something else you could use instead of the modulo operator", leading questions to encourage them to check the man page (or google it), inquiring maybe a different language would be a better fit. That this person could wrap their head around fizz buzz was only a minor detail. That they were fixated on making a specific implementation work was a big miss. At this job specifically the tech stack was fairly diverse so there was a lot of value in being able to suss out the right tools for the job and less value in being able to bang out a more complex algorithm in clojurescript or whatever.

rockemsockem 4y ago

I really hope you (or someone else in your interview loop) asks another question besides FizzBuzz.

inferiorhuman 4y ago
I'm not quite sure where you got the impression that fizz buzz is the only interview question that got asked. I'm fairly process oriented so I find a lot of value in observing how someone works. But at some point it's just not worth it to proceed further. I like fizz buzz because it's both a good low pass filter and a good jumping off point for further discussion. If you can't read the Wiki entry and wrap your head around fizz buzz, you're probably not a good fit. If you can then there's the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions (e.g. why did you choose this language, how would you test this, what would you do differently) and maybe even move on to a more complex program. For the one candidate who struggled with bash, we started offering input around the ten minute mark. Stuff like "is there something else you could use instead of the modulo operator", leading questions to encourage them to check the man page (or google it), inquiring maybe a different language would be a better fit. That this person could wrap their head around fizz buzz was only a minor detail. That they were fixated on making a specific implementation work was a big miss. At this job specifically the tech stack was fairly diverse so there was a lot of value in being able to suss out the right tools for the job and less value in being able to bang out a more complex algorithm in clojurescript or whatever.