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The entire point is "is this person capable of the most basic fundamentals of programming (conditionals, looping). That's it. We don't filter out obsessive pe
by papsosouid 14y ago
The entire point is "is this person capable of the most basic fundamentals of programming (conditionals, looping). That's it. We don't filter out obsessive people with it, they demonstrate that they understand conditionals and looping, what's the problem?
- GhotiFish 14y agoI think FizzBuzz does filter obsessive people. Someone who is obsessive wouldn't like their off the cuff solutions to FizzBuzz. They would think of a solution and stop themselves from writing anything at all. How would you tell the difference between someone who doesn't want to write their first three solutions, to someone who can't think of even one? Microsoft's "implement strcmp without the use of libraries" doesn't have this property. strcmp has an easy and clean solution.
- papsosouid 14y ago>I think FizzBuzz does filter obsessive people. FizzBuzz doesn't filter anyone, the people using it do. It is not difficult to explain the purpose of the exercise, and that easily resolves the problem for people looking for "clean" solutions.
- GhotiFish 14y agoIs this your experience? I've seen good programmers, people I know who are good programers, get stammered by FizzBuzz for lack of "clean" solutions.
- papsosouid 14y agoYes. I think you are seriously underestimating the intellectual capacity of those people. Telling them "it doesn't matter how nice it is, or clean it is, or generic, or reusable, or maintainable, it is just to see if you can do basic introductory level code" solves the problem. Anyone who still stands there like a moron writing nothing is useless as a developer, regardless of the reason they stand there.
- GhotiFish 14y agoFair point then. > I think you are seriously underestimating the intellectual capacity of those people overestimating?
- TillE 14y agoLots of practical problems don't have clean, elegant solutions. Maybe part of it will be a beautiful algorithm, but some of the logic will probably be fairly clunky. You have to be able to solve those problems too.