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Which would be perfectly valid if software developers spent their entire day solving problems on the whiteboard. But we don't.

singlow 12y ago
At my first job this was very common. Usually it was more related to schema design and class hierarchies. But there were always white boards full of diagrams of whatever we worked on. We had folders full of digital photos of white boards as reference material. I'll never forget how excited the lead dev was one day when he got some markers that would automatically make a digital file from whatever he drew on the white board.
- juliangregorian 12y ago
  Whoa, something like this? https://www.schoolsin.com/qrt-kapture-digital-flipchart-pen/QRT-23706.html https://www.schoolsin.com/qrt-kapture-digital-flipchart-pen/... I did not realize accelerometers/gyroscopes/whatever were capable of that.
frostmatthew 12y ago
Imagine you were in charge of casting for your community theater's production of Hamlet. How would you decide who to cast? I'm guessing you would find it sensible to hold auditions. Does an audition perfectly mimic what they would actually spend their time doing come showtime? No. There isn't an audience, the lighting and acoustics are different, nobody is wearing costumes, everyone is standing in the same place instead of moving around, people are reading from scripts instead of having lines memorized, etc. The audition isn't intended to mirror a performance - it's intended to give some insight into how someone may perform. Likewise, whiteboarding isn't intended to replicate a typical day in the life of a software developer. It's intended to give a glimpse into how you solve problems. As I said above, it's not perfect, but it's far more useful than hiring someone without any coding exercises and basing your decision just on how well they answer questions or what their background is. In fact the whole point of the post you're commenting on is to point out the foolishness of basing hiring decisions solely on having X years of experience in Y technology.
- mtviewdave 12y ago
  >As I said above, it's not perfect, but it's far more useful than hiring someone without any coding exercises Whiteboarding vs no coding exercises is a false dichotomy. There are ways to test coding in a 45 minute interview that don't involve standing in front of a whiteboard, writing with a marker.
  - frostmatthew 12y ago
    > Whiteboarding vs no coding exercises is a false dichotomy. Sorry, it wasn't my intention to suggest those were the only two options (I was attempting to comment on the benefits of coding exercises, regardless of method). Using a computer is certainly as good or better than a whiteboard. Though one of the bigger downsides to using a computer is there's generally this expectation you need to write "real" code that actually compiles and runs and so the focus becomes as much on writing syntactically correct code as about how you solve the problem (when only the latter has value).
jmilloy 12y ago
In the jobs I've liked, I do. To be more precise, I solve the problem on a whiteboard, and then type out the solution at the computer. The more experience I have, the less often I encounter gotchas while typing that I missed at the whiteboard. The distinction matters. Are you an engineer or a tech? An architect or a laborer? Often, software developers end up being both (just as carpenters often end up designing and building). In particular, if you want your developers to be both, then you should make sure they can.

singlow 12y ago

At my first job this was very common. Usually it was more related to schema design and class hierarchies. But there were always white boards full of diagrams of whatever we worked on. We had folders full of digital photos of white boards as reference material. I'll never forget how excited the lead dev was one day when he got some markers that would automatically make a digital file from whatever he drew on the white board.

juliangregorian 12y ago
Whoa, something like this? https://www.schoolsin.com/qrt-kapture-digital-flipchart-pen/QRT-23706.html https://www.schoolsin.com/qrt-kapture-digital-flipchart-pen/... I did not realize accelerometers/gyroscopes/whatever were capable of that.

frostmatthew 12y ago

Imagine you were in charge of casting for your community theater's production of Hamlet. How would you decide who to cast? I'm guessing you would find it sensible to hold auditions. Does an audition perfectly mimic what they would actually spend their time doing come showtime? No. There isn't an audience, the lighting and acoustics are different, nobody is wearing costumes, everyone is standing in the same place instead of moving around, people are reading from scripts instead of having lines memorized, etc. The audition isn't intended to mirror a performance - it's intended to give some insight into how someone may perform. Likewise, whiteboarding isn't intended to replicate a typical day in the life of a software developer. It's intended to give a glimpse into how you solve problems. As I said above, it's not perfect, but it's far more useful than hiring someone without any coding exercises and basing your decision just on how well they answer questions or what their background is. In fact the whole point of the post you're commenting on is to point out the foolishness of basing hiring decisions solely on having X years of experience in Y technology.

mtviewdave 12y ago
>As I said above, it's not perfect, but it's far more useful than hiring someone without any coding exercises Whiteboarding vs no coding exercises is a false dichotomy. There are ways to test coding in a 45 minute interview that don't involve standing in front of a whiteboard, writing with a marker.
- frostmatthew 12y ago
  > Whiteboarding vs no coding exercises is a false dichotomy. Sorry, it wasn't my intention to suggest those were the only two options (I was attempting to comment on the benefits of coding exercises, regardless of method). Using a computer is certainly as good or better than a whiteboard. Though one of the bigger downsides to using a computer is there's generally this expectation you need to write "real" code that actually compiles and runs and so the focus becomes as much on writing syntactically correct code as about how you solve the problem (when only the latter has value).

jmilloy 12y ago

In the jobs I've liked, I do. To be more precise, I solve the problem on a whiteboard, and then type out the solution at the computer. The more experience I have, the less often I encounter gotchas while typing that I missed at the whiteboard. The distinction matters. Are you an engineer or a tech? An architect or a laborer? Often, software developers end up being both (just as carpenters often end up designing and building). In particular, if you want your developers to be both, then you should make sure they can.