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> I'm still amazed by how many "experienced" programmers can't do this. ... can't do this in your incredibly artificial, unrealistic context. I hate live codi

> I'm still amazed by how many "experienced" programmers can't do this. ... can't do this in your incredibly artificial, unrealistic context. I hate live coding in an interview, especially on paper or whiteboard. I know you say you don't care about syntax and little stuff, but that's not what happens in my brain. I suddenly forget the most basic things. "Wait, do I use semicolons at the end of lines in Ruby? Aaaah, I've been using Ruby for 5 years. How can I not know this. I'm going to bomb this interview. I should just leave now." I know it sounds ridiculous to you, but something very similar actually happened to me. Give me a block of time and a sample problem to work on at a computer, fine. Ask me to refactor code that already exists, whatevs. I'll happily write and discuss code. Just don't give me that blank piece of paper. My brain goes crazy. And the funny part is that I've been told one of my best qualities as a developer is my calm, thoughtful performance under pressure. When somebody accidentally drops that table in production or both load balancers go down, I'm your guy. I'll get it fixed quickly, without a lot of panic and fussing about. Just don't give me that piece of paper in an interview. I can't explain it, but it's true, for me. Maybe it's just that I deal with real crises often enough to have developed a mental muscle for it, but I interview so rarely that I don't have the patterns yet. Either way, I think you're missing out on great candidates with this approach.

edw519 11y ago
Can you do fizzbuzz in 15 minutes? It doesn't have to compile or even be right. But you should at least be able to pseudo code your way through it, explain what you did, and discuss it. For a professional programmer, anything less is just an excuse or an attitude problem.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  Sure, fizzbuzz is trivially easy – under normal circumstances. But some people find these types of exercises irrationally difficult in the context of an interview, especially when coupled with the artificiality of writing it out by hand on paper. > For a professional programmer, anything less is just an excuse or an attitude problem. You're entitled to your opinion. I disagree. I think you're projecting your personal experience of the world onto other people, which is your prerogative as the interviewer. However, speaking from personal experience, I know some people who would otherwise make excellent teammates, top contributors, etc., will fail this test, and many who pass this test will make terrible employees. As I said elsewhere, you will get many false positives and some false negatives. Thus, I think it's a bad test and a waste of time.
smikhanov 11y ago
... can't do this in your incredibly artificial, unrealistic context Oh, then you're a non-hire (rightfully so). If you can't adjust to such a simple context, there's no way I can be sure you can handle an occasional tight deadline, urgent and critical failure in production, rewrite of stinky and hairy piece of code left by a less competent colleague, external system that mystically fails for no reason and writes no logs whatsoever, etc, ad infinium. Programming profession is hard and full of rough edges, unfortunately.
- mquander 11y ago
  If you can't adjust to such a simple context, there's no way I can be sure you can handle an occasional tight deadline, urgent and critical failure in production, rewrite of stinky and hairy piece of code left by a less competent colleague, external system that mystically fails for no reason and writes no logs whatsoever, etc, ad infinium. Citation needed.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  And you think if I solve fizzbuzz in 15 minutes on a sheet of paper, you can be sure I can handle those things? That's the part I don't get. It's so arbitrary and artificial. All you can be sure of is that I can solve fizzbuzz in 15 minutes. > Programming profession is hard and full of rough edges, unfortunately. I agree completely, but I think paper programming exercises produce false positives AND false negatives.
- krisdol 11y ago
  How does your team manage to accomplish all these tight deadlines while having to use paper and whiteboards to rewrite stinky code? Do your production servers run A4 or legal? What's your cardstock uptime? I've had trouble switching to glossy for all but the most specialized of tasks, I'd be really curious to hear about your paper stack.
gvb 11y ago
I think it is really pretty simple: in an unfamiliar environment and especially using totally unrealistic tools (paper or whiteboard), your "muscle memory" loses its memory and your thought process is totally derailed by thinking about the pen and whiteboard. In a familiar environment, the mechanical process of typing is subconscious and your brain can concentrate on the problem, and not get tied up thinking about how to write in straight lines on a whiteboard. The flip side equivalent: many modern writers cannot use computers to be creative: http://mashable.com/2014/02/15/modern-writers-technology/ http://mashable.com/2014/02/15/modern-writers-technology/ Here is a list of (mostly manual) typewriters that authors use: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

edw519 11y ago

Can you do fizzbuzz in 15 minutes? It doesn't have to compile or even be right. But you should at least be able to pseudo code your way through it, explain what you did, and discuss it. For a professional programmer, anything less is just an excuse or an attitude problem.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago
Sure, fizzbuzz is trivially easy – under normal circumstances. But some people find these types of exercises irrationally difficult in the context of an interview, especially when coupled with the artificiality of writing it out by hand on paper. > For a professional programmer, anything less is just an excuse or an attitude problem. You're entitled to your opinion. I disagree. I think you're projecting your personal experience of the world onto other people, which is your prerogative as the interviewer. However, speaking from personal experience, I know some people who would otherwise make excellent teammates, top contributors, etc., will fail this test, and many who pass this test will make terrible employees. As I said elsewhere, you will get many false positives and some false negatives. Thus, I think it's a bad test and a waste of time.

smikhanov 11y ago

... can't do this in your incredibly artificial, unrealistic context Oh, then you're a non-hire (rightfully so). If you can't adjust to such a simple context, there's no way I can be sure you can handle an occasional tight deadline, urgent and critical failure in production, rewrite of stinky and hairy piece of code left by a less competent colleague, external system that mystically fails for no reason and writes no logs whatsoever, etc, ad infinium. Programming profession is hard and full of rough edges, unfortunately.

mquander 11y ago
If you can't adjust to such a simple context, there's no way I can be sure you can handle an occasional tight deadline, urgent and critical failure in production, rewrite of stinky and hairy piece of code left by a less competent colleague, external system that mystically fails for no reason and writes no logs whatsoever, etc, ad infinium. Citation needed.
Tenhundfeld 11y ago
And you think if I solve fizzbuzz in 15 minutes on a sheet of paper, you can be sure I can handle those things? That's the part I don't get. It's so arbitrary and artificial. All you can be sure of is that I can solve fizzbuzz in 15 minutes. > Programming profession is hard and full of rough edges, unfortunately. I agree completely, but I think paper programming exercises produce false positives AND false negatives.
krisdol 11y ago
How does your team manage to accomplish all these tight deadlines while having to use paper and whiteboards to rewrite stinky code? Do your production servers run A4 or legal? What's your cardstock uptime? I've had trouble switching to glossy for all but the most specialized of tasks, I'd be really curious to hear about your paper stack.

gvb 11y ago

I think it is really pretty simple: in an unfamiliar environment and especially using totally unrealistic tools (paper or whiteboard), your "muscle memory" loses its memory and your thought process is totally derailed by thinking about the pen and whiteboard. In a familiar environment, the mechanical process of typing is subconscious and your brain can concentrate on the problem, and not get tied up thinking about how to write in straight lines on a whiteboard. The flip side equivalent: many modern writers cannot use computers to be creative: http://mashable.com/2014/02/15/modern-writers-technology/ http://mashable.com/2014/02/15/modern-writers-technology/ Here is a list of (mostly manual) typewriters that authors use: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html