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If you cannot manage to build something in a few weeks time in your spare time then there is absolutely no way you can be "the best".

by b20000 4y ago

maxbond 4y ago
"The best" may spend their "spare" time raising children, doing volunteer work, or simply unwinding - just because you didn't sell that time to an employer doesn't mean there aren't demands on it, or that you're obligated to spend every waking moment engaging in some form of labor. Having personal time to devote to programming isn't a function of job performance, it's a function of your particular life circumstances. And if you created a huge incentive to fabricate personal projects, a cottage industry of people who will create something cool on your GitHub in a way that looks authentic would spring up, and you'd be prioritizing people with the wealth and inclination to cheat over other candidates.
- b20000 4y ago
  grinding leetcode to prep for interviews takes a lot more time. how can you have a CS degree and a career and have no personal projects? i graduated in CS with 4 programming projects done. all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep. the difference is that if it is your own code that you walk through you need to prep a lot less. and that is good because in your situation you would not be able to grind hundreds of irrelevant problems in your spare time for each interview. as far as your cottage industry argument… you can tell if someone did not write his own code and the system is being gamed right now anyway by people taking interviews for others and so on. and this thread shows people are medicating which is the worst.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    > how can you have a CS degree and a career and have no personal projects? Other people's lives differ from yours in ways that are difficult to imagine. Plenty of people have a career in programming without ever going to college. Just because one can't imagine it doesn't make it invalid, or even that it is one's business. If it isn't about their job performance, don't measure it. > all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep. An interesting point, but of course I wasn't defending leetcode interviews, I was responding to your assertion that people who have the requisite skills necessarily have free time, and the subtext that any time not spent working was available for more working.

If you cannot manage to build something in a few weeks time in your spare time then there is absolutely no way you can be "the best".

by b20000 4y ago

If you cannot manage to build something in a few weeks time in your spare time then there is absolutely no way you can be "the best".

maxbond 4y ago

"The best" may spend their "spare" time raising children, doing volunteer work, or simply unwinding - just because you didn't sell that time to an employer doesn't mean there aren't demands on it, or that you're obligated to spend every waking moment engaging in some form of labor. Having personal time to devote to programming isn't a function of job performance, it's a function of your particular life circumstances. And if you created a huge incentive to fabricate personal projects, a cottage industry of people who will create something cool on your GitHub in a way that looks authentic would spring up, and you'd be prioritizing people with the wealth and inclination to cheat over other candidates.

b20000 4y ago
grinding leetcode to prep for interviews takes a lot more time. how can you have a CS degree and a career and have no personal projects? i graduated in CS with 4 programming projects done. all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep. the difference is that if it is your own code that you walk through you need to prep a lot less. and that is good because in your situation you would not be able to grind hundreds of irrelevant problems in your spare time for each interview. as far as your cottage industry argument… you can tell if someone did not write his own code and the system is being gamed right now anyway by people taking interviews for others and so on. and this thread shows people are medicating which is the worst.
- maxbond 4y ago
  > how can you have a CS degree and a career and have no personal projects? Other people's lives differ from yours in ways that are difficult to imagine. Plenty of people have a career in programming without ever going to college. Just because one can't imagine it doesn't make it invalid, or even that it is one's business. If it isn't about their job performance, don't measure it. > all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep. An interesting point, but of course I wasn't defending leetcode interviews, I was responding to your assertion that people who have the requisite skills necessarily have free time, and the subtext that any time not spent working was available for more working.