Gnarly Programming Challenges Help Recruit Coders 177
Hugh Pickens writes "George Anders writes that companies like Facebook are finding that old-fashioned hiring channels aren't paying off fast enough and are publishing gnarly programming challenges and inviting engineers anywhere to solve them. 'We developed this theory that occasionally there were these brilliant people out there who hadn't found their way to Silicon Valley,' says Facebook engineer Yishan Wong who volunteered to draft puzzles so hard that he couldn't solve them. The problems aren't the superficial brainteasers that some companies use, like estimating the number of basketballs sold every year or why are manhole covers round, but developing sophisticated algorithms — like ways of automatically seating a clique of people in a movie theater, given that best friends want to be side by side and rivals need to be far apart. David Eisenstat has compiled an unofficial guide to the Facebook Engineering Puzzles. Our favorite: 'Liar, Lair,' seems particularly applicable to slashdot: 'As a newbie on a particular internet discussion board, you notice a distinct trend among its veteran members; everyone seems to be either unfailingly honest or compulsively deceptive,' says the description of the problem. 'You must write a program to determine, given all the information you've collected from the discussion board members, which members have the same attitude toward telling the truth.'"
Missed a category (Score:2)
Should be: all the board members are either unfailingly honest, compulsively deceptive, or massive trolls. Might actually have real world applications.
Also, oblig xkcd [xkcd.com].
An alternate solution. (Score:2)
Via The Order of the Stick.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html [giantitp.com]
PHP (Score:2, Insightful)
We're talking about a company who writes all their code in PHP. Nuff said.
Simple test to detect liars in a fourm (Score:2)
MemberClass = GetCurrentMember();
for Post in MemberClass.GetAllPosts():
for Reply in Post.GetAllReplies():
if "rtfa" in Reply.lower() and Reply.Poster != Member:
Member.LiarProbability = Member.LiarProbabilty + 1;
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Using that code, you end up with probabilities far greater than 1, which are meaningless. It would be better to call the variable "LiarScore" or something like that.
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LIES!
Re:Simple test to detect liars in a fourm (Score:5, Funny)
if User.NitpickeryScore > 10:
User.LonlinessScore = User.LonlinessScore + 1;
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Is it a bad sign when I want to nitpick and say you could just use "User.LonlinessScore++;"?
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Yes it is. That's Python code. ;)
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Sorry to reply to my own post, but like a dumb-butt I didn't hit preview. Python doesn't support ++. Drives me nuts.
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In what alternate universe is Python a typo for something that does support ++? And somehow, you reading your own post after typing it all out, would have realized duh, Python doesn't support ++, I meant a completely different language?
Seriously just curious.
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The code I wrote was in Python. It wasn't understood that I wrote it in Python, so I clarified that and submitted my post. After I hit submit, I realized that not everybody may know that Python doesn't do ++.
I really don't get what you meant by 'typo' in this context.
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You should get a +5 funny for all the problems you managed to embed into two lines of code that keep programmers from resisting the urge to nit-pick. My first thoughts were the mis-spelling of loneliness, the non-standard indentation for Python (which requires you to be anal about indentation), the avoidance of +=, and the unnecessary semi-colon at the end of the line.
So what does that make my nit-pickery score?
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The nitpick about the indentation on a site that won't let me put in the tab whitespace landed you neatly between "never touched a woman" and "Babylon 5 is playing on his TV right now".
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Good one. ;-)
From what I hear, you're not supposed to use tab whitespace in Python anyway: ;#) Add another for a syntactically valid smiley icon
s_p_oneil.NitpickeryScore += 1
Actually, when I hit preview, it converted my 2 spaces into 4 for some reason, so I'll have to give you that one. Someone should give the /. devs a hard time for not making posts Python-safe. I think I just pushed myself into the "owning my own bat-leth" category, or perhaps even a storm-trooper costume. ;-)
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Well, no, it's not psuedocode. But I will concede that Python is basically jusy psuedocode that works after you've properly indented it.
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It was a slip of the keys, just like 'jusy' was, virgin.
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I'd start by writing a dictionary table of lying words...
Well, one way you could have been nicer about it was to clickie the linkie before spouting off this nonsense:
http://www.facebook.com/careers/puzzles.php?puzzle_id=20 [facebook.com]
Most places would prefer you stay inside the box and start by reading the requirements. ;)
It's a math problem, not an attempt at AI.
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According to the summary, it's asking you to determine "which members have the same attitude toward telling the truth", which is similar but not exactly the same as determining whether a given person is telling the truth or not. I would assume the following:
You have to do this in a purely reactive way, meaning you're not allowed to ask questions, you can only look at what others have asked and how people have responded.
You do not have enough knowledge about the topic being discussed to determine truth/fals
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This kind of problem reminds me of advanced placement java in highschool :)
Youngin. Java didn't exist when I took AP comp sci. :)
As to your other post, we already know it's not real world applicable, given that very few people are either unfailingly honest or compulsive liars.
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Youngin. Java didn't exist when I took AP comp sci. :)
Youngin. AP comp sci didn't exist when I went to high school.
As to the GP's post, if coding is "repetitive tedious, and fuckin boring", it's because you are repetitive, tedious, and boring.
The main purpose of programming is to eliminate human repetition.
If you can't figure out how to eliminate repetitive coding, you aren't a real programmer. Just a hack.
Real world. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the number of comments take each post and divide by....
Got an email Hold on...
Management has now changed the comments to votes...
Given the number of votes FOR a post...
Email again, 1 sec...
We're now on a new project making a "facebook for insurance policies"?
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Your truthfulness factor is too high, you have been discluded from the pool of valid users.
Old-fashioned hiring channels (Score:2, Funny)
Well, let's see here. We have the standard interview format, where they find out what you know and how you've used it (after HR subjects your resume to the most stupid and rigorous pigeonholing known to man), there's the audition format, where they give you a task and judge your results, and then there's what I like to call the goofy-as-fuck-Google-format, where they subject you to bizarre questions that don't have any particular bearing on your actual job and instead attempt to figure out how creative or c
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An this way they again get non-engineer coders (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite frankly, solving these problems today should not be hard. At most a literature search should bring you the algorithmics. But what is hard is doing good, maintainable interfaces, writing high quality code, having a good design and a good architecture, having working defense-in-depth against attacks, etc. None of which a brilliant person without in-depth CS education and significant experience can do. This just keeps up the atrocious code quality responsible for so many data leaks and successful attacks. It also explains the high cost of software.
This is the wrong approach on so many levels...
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Quite frankly, solving these problems today should not be hard. At most a literature search should bring you the algorithmics. But what is hard is doing good, maintainable interfaces, writing high quality code, having a good design and a good architecture, having working defense-in-depth against attacks, etc. None of which a brilliant person without in-depth CS education and significant experience can do. This just keeps up the atrocious code quality responsible for so many data leaks and successful attacks. It also explains the high cost of software.
This is the wrong approach on so many levels...
It does, however, go very far in explaining Facebook's current state.
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Quite frankly, solving these problems today should not be hard. At most a literature search should bring you the algorithmics. But what is hard is doing good, maintainable interfaces, writing high quality code, having a good design and a good architecture, having working defense-in-depth against attacks, etc. None of which a brilliant person without in-depth CS education and significant experience can do. This just keeps up the atrocious code quality responsible for so many data leaks and successful attacks. It also explains the high cost of software.
This is the wrong approach on so many levels...
It does, however, go very far in explaining Facebook's current state.
I'm curious how eBay recruits coders...
"Do you follower orders to the letter, even if they are bloody stupid and will cause anger and frustration among the user base."
"Yes. I hate people. It would give me great joy."
"When can you start?"
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Quite frankly, solving these problems today should not be hard. At most a literature search should bring you the algorithmics. But what is hard is doing good, maintainable interfaces, writing high quality code, having a good design and a good architecture, having working defense-in-depth against attacks, etc. None of which a brilliant person without in-depth CS education and significant experience can do. This just keeps up the atrocious code quality responsible for so many data leaks and successful attacks. It also explains the high cost of software.
This is the wrong approach on so many levels...
It does, however, go very far in explaining Facebook's current state.
It does indeed.
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I agree that there's many, many poor interfaces, unmaintainable code, and security nightmares. But what makes you think this has anything to do with "engineer coders"? I've been in this industry for 15 years, and I have no idea what a "engineer coder" means. Fools come in many shapes and forms, and I've never found any simple way to distinguish between them.
Much of the problem is that quality code isn't valued in academic programs. So it's no surprise that people come out without having these skills.
Re:An this way they again get non-engineer coders (Score:4, Interesting)
To define: An engineer is somebody that understands the state-of-the-art in a technological field really well and can use the tools it provides to create technological artifacts (here: software) that solve concrete problems in a reliable, efficient and secure way.
I agree that many academically educated "coders" are not engineers either. Quite frankly, about 75% of my graduation year in my CS master's program does not qualify. However that is only partially the fault of the university, as the important subjects were being taught. You just had to much choice and could avoid them all. I also have to admit that the Software Engineering lecture was a bad joke, taught by an US-educated professor with the main qualification of having an over-sized ego. For example, this guy failed to define aliveness of petri-nets correctly in 5 consecutive weeks and then once more in the written exam. Pathetic.
Still, engineers always have to be pragmatists, have to understand the long-term perspective and at least a part of the business-perspective. They can be brilliant but do not need to be. In software, a good engineer can specify, architect, design, implement and maintain a software system, all steps with reasonable quality. All steps need significant education, insight and experience. For example, it is very difficult to be a good architect without real coding experience. At the same time, you cannot be a good coder without architecture, design and maintenance experience.
While brilliance is great, it can never replace experience and education. It can however lead to "brilliant" solutions that work well in the short term, but are a maintenance, scalability, security and reliability nightmare. For example, one thing brilliant people in coding regularly miss is that simplicity, consistency and clarity are absolutely essential for maintainable code. Another thing they typically do not know is that it is actually harder to come up with simple solutions than with complex ones and that simple solutions are worth much, much more than complex ones. This comes IMO from both lack of experience and the personal experience that they can master complex solutions (in the short-term that is). It quite frankly often also has a component of arrogance and disregard for others that have that experience and are perceived as "holding them back". I have seen quite a few people like that fail when presented with a real-world longer-term problem.
That said, a truly great coder has education, experience _and_ brilliance. These people are really, really rare but cannot be replaced by anything else. If you need one of those, best hold the project until you have found one.
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What you call brilliance, I call "cleverness". Brilliance is seeing things in a flash, or seeing what others can't. Cleverness is just a narrow minded view of making this fast, or cool, or "efficient", or whatever, without regard to maintainability, readability, or the entire larger picture of software development. There's plenty of people tat are brilliant, and see beyond what others can and also value simplicty, maintainability, etc. The underlying problem (one of many) is the narrow focus and tunnel
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I understand what you are saying. I used to think along similar lines. But by now I have had the opportunity to add quite a bit of experience to the mix and looking back, I was just kidding myself back then.
So I stand by my statement: Experience cannot be replaced by anything else, no matter how brilliant, clever, etc. a person is. And experience is essential for the long-term view. There are so many factors that you simply cannot anticipate or even understand until you actually have seen them at work. The
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I am actually sure he did not have a clue. The first corrections he always explained that somebody pointed a mistake out to him and explained what was wrong. The last one (in the exam), I fixed his definition, attached a proof that his was wrong and got full score. The point was that his definition just did not do what he wanted it to do. (By then some friends and I had done several days of literature research to find out how this really works. And yes, I recall running into multiple definitions as well. Bu
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You are almost correct, solving most of these problems using an O(2^x) algorithm or worst is trivial, but solving it on a large dataset before the universe heat death is not. But the challenge you mentioned (maintainable interfaces, writing high quality code, having a good design and a good architecture, having working defense-in-depth against attacks) are hard, nonetheless they can be solved at the workplace by establishing a well crafted mentorship and learning program; being an innate NP-hard problem sol
PHP (Score:3)
Facebook builds their software using PHP which ties VB for being the language of course for when you need as many cheap dumb programmers as possible.
You don't think they simply needed some new blood?
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I see your misunderstanding. I never said "formal education". Some are able to educate themselves. It still takes time and in a good job-interview you can identify people that have managed to complement a lacking formal education.
That being said, a lack of formal education indicated a lack of understanding how society works. That may disqualify you as a software architect in some cases, unless you also managed to learn that skill by yourself later on which is something a prospective employer needs to know.
B
Same type of stuff needs to be done with IT work (Score:2)
To many HR people are focusing inordinately on candidates’ education, grade-point averages, what school they went to HR does not like tech schools.
So they end up turning away a lot of talented people whose true abilities surpassed their academic credentials.
Now for IT an apprenticeship system will be a good fit and let people work though real work place challenges and other stuff you do not get in the books.
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Which is why it's critical for IT people ti participate in user groups.
Very few jobs I ever got where through HR. HR had always been told to hire me, and that ended their involvement with the hiring process.
I have found this to be true with everyone I ever talked to about it.; however that's an anecdote, so grain of salt and all that.
The bets Process I ever went through was for a government position. I was valued on my experience, and they actually asked relevant questions.
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it needs to be 6mo to 1-2 years apprenticeship.
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I'm not talking about programming talking IT work (Score:2)
I'm not talking about programming talking about IT work.
programmers make poor system admins.
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Really? (Score:4, Funny)
So that's what programmers at software companies do all day? Write novel algorithms?
Coulda fooled me, last software job I had I spent all day in meetings.
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+1 Disgruntled.
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Silicone Valley Centric (Score:2)
"We developed this theory that occasionally there were these brilliant people out there who hadn't found their way to Silicon Valley"
A lot of folks don't make it to the SV. The chances of making it huge are pretty slim. Even if you work for a company like Facebook, but the time the majority of people have joined cheap stock options are claimed. So that leaves you with long days, astronomical costs of living, and the opertunity to get stuck with over priced property every time a bubble bursts. Or you cou
(facepalm time) (Score:5, Insightful)
'We developed this theory that occasionally there were these brilliant people out there who hadn't found their way to Silicon Valley/
Douche comment of the week right there. And I want to work with someone who has *that* limited of a horizon why, exactly?
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'We developed this theory that occasionally there were these brilliant people out there who hadn't found their way to Silicon Valley/
Douche comment of the week right there. And I want to work with someone who has *that* limited of a horizon why, exactly?
It's got a tough contender: "Our favorite: 'Liar, Lair,' seems particularly applicable to slashdot..."
Oh my God, people on a discussion site disagree strongly about things, stop the fucking presses.
Re:(facepalm time) (Score:5, Informative)
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First, has anyone else here ever been quoted in a book or online publication and had it end up making you look like a douche when that's not at all what you meant? Especially when you spent like hours talking to your interviewer and they paraphrase it down into words you didn't actually say? Well, please don't hate until it's happened to you.
It's never happened to me personally, but I've seen and heard about several examples where this has happened. You're absolutely right, dealing with the press is a minefield.
So instead, we're like, "Okay, we should figure out a way to get all the talented people *outside* the Valley to join us, because we can't win the in-Valley echo-chamber local recruiting game."
What I've seen Google do is have their engineers actively recruit people who write tech blogs that sound like they know their shit. You can also scour forums like Stack Overflow or look at open source projects. Also, the whole idea that you need to actually be in Silicon Valley to work instead of telecommuting is silly in 2011.
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It almost makes me glad I'm closer to early retirement than not- I knew the tech industry had wet dreams about being like Hollywood, but I didn't realize that extended even to recruiting. Sorry, it still sounds bad, like your valley is some sort of El Dorado or Holy Land.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph [wikipedia.org]
Anyway, I design hardware. [podunk voice="applejack"]That seems to baffle most "tech" types from that there valley of yours, sugarcube. Why, shucks, them rascals seem to reckon hardware appears fu
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lulz
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I've seen a bit too many of his type and I fear it was a completely serious remark.
I found my way to Silicon Valley (Score:3)
I found my way to Silicon Valley.
And discovered it's a crowded, underbuilt swordfest.
No girls, no sunshine, no warmth, crappy food.
And all the computer stuff can be done from somewhere else (which is why much of Silicon Valley moved back to India).
Seriously. Plow it under and put the fruit trees back. Silicon Valley is done.
The liar/truth teller problem is well known. (Score:2)
The discussion board problem is a basic twist on a puzzle from Lewis Carroll, to determine if person x and person y are in the same group you ask one what the other would say to a simple well known fact ('what color is the sky?) if both are truth tellers or both are liars they will answer correctly ('blue') so they are in the same group (but you can't determine which) if they answer badly ('red') than one is a truth teller and one is a liar, and you can't tell which.
The development of a seat selection algor
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Help recruit coder? (Score:2)
I would just leave. I don't jump through hoops to be allowed to work someone.
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What, you just fill out an application and hope Burger King calls you back?
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Up to now the usual job interviews were totally sufficient. No fancy guessing games. And with each successful project in my cv the interviews get shorter and easier. When I get called back, it is a former customer who wants to know whether I am free or not. I am freelancer and usually booked out.
No, not "gnarly" (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you want programmers who are good at design and reliably competent, but not overly clever, at code. "Cute" code is very '70s.
Incidentally, the "why are manhole covers round", which appeared on the 1971 Comprehensive Examination in Computer Science at Stanford and was widely copied from there, is almost always misunderstood. While it's nice to have a lid you can't drop through the hole, that's not the reason. Many modern covers are rectangular. [syrcast.com] It's because manhole covers and their matching rings are 19th century technology, from the day when casting, planing, drilling, and turning were the main metalworking operations. Those limit the shapes you can make cheaply. Look at a steam locomotive built prior to 1920. Every machined surface is circular or flat. Manhole covers were made by casting with a single clamping on a lathe to clean up the outside edge. Similarly, the matching rings were cast and got a quick trim on a lathe to true them up. This gives you a matched pair that won't rattle or clang.
Cleaning up an inside rectangular edge requires a milling machine, which was an exotic precision device until about 1930 or so.
So that's why manhole covers are round. Low manufacturing cost.
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Totally agree with your reasoning, and add: square is nearly the only shape that, given a lip so it can't drop into the hole, can be turned such that it will. If "can't drop into the hole" were the only reason, you could go with triangles or anything with more than about 5 sides, and the major diameter - minor diameter width would be exceeded by the lip so they wouldn't either. In other words, not only does history roll its eyes at this question, so does basic geometry. I've been asked this question in a
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Not to mention it's much easier to drop a pipe in the ground and cement it in place than building a square shaft.
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Many modern covers are rectangular. [syrcast.com]
Funny but when I clicked on your link only 1 of the manhole frames/covers on that page were rectangular. And while it's quite anecdotal, I can surely say that I have never seen a rectangular manhole cover. I live in a very large city as well so it's not like I have a sample bias against me.
what I hate about interviews (Score:5, Insightful)
is that they expect 'real time' answers to problems that sometimes need a bit of thought. its also ageist, as younger people can think faster (I sure did 30 yrs ago when I was fresh out of school) and are more familiar with classic compsci algorithms and problems. the more time you are away from those 'classic' problems and their cute solutions, the more time it will take you to re-invent them on their on. asking for that real-time while you watch is just too much to ask, for many of us.
this does NOT mean we can't solve the problem. but it does mean that realtime 'solve whilst I watch' is pure bullshit and a really stupid way to judge programming talent and problem solving ability.
That's Not What I'm Looking For (Score:5, Insightful)
In interviews I've conducted, I've had VERY few people who didn't view me as an impediment to a fat paycheck, who didn't think the questions I was asking them were bullshit and who actually tried to find out more about what I wanted when I asked them to design a function for me. Those people got hired. Some of the others did too, but always against my advice.
You want to do well in an interview? Try ENJOYING yourself there. If you're excited to be there and excited to talk to future team mates, they will sense that. If you don't want to be there and hate everything about the process, they'll sense that too. You can refine your technique all you want after that, but you'll always get more job offers just enjoying an interview than you will if you hate it.
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Which reminds me of the best skill I ever learned regarding interviews.
"Don't Panic!"
If you walk in and treat it as nothing special, don't over stress yourself, put no pressure on yourself to perform like a trained monkey, you'll be able to weed out jobs where they expect you to be a human robot & other such nasty situations you wouldn't see if you were so focused on "getting this job"
If you aren't prepared to walk out, don't walk in!
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Academia is just as bad with how it forces math down CS people's unknowing mouths. Your comment sums up exactly what I disliked about Math theory courses starting with Pre-Calculus. Every single class stopped being old material, and was riding on "cute" solutions that had to be learned by watching someone solve a boring proof. It couldn't just be figured out by looking at the book in advance because all advanced math is made through centuries worth of geniouses who worked bits out at the leisure of several
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in my case, I really don't remember a lot of the fancy ways to attack a problem, textbook style. so when I'm deriving, I'm really doing it for the first time. that *takes* time.
I get the feeling that I'm rushed and they don't want to talk about requirements that much. they see it as a delay tactic (I've sensed this personally). but I really do engage the person there and try to bound the problem, verbally walk thru what might not work as well as what might. see if its going in the direction he is looki
Don't be too clever! :) (Score:4, Insightful)
execution (Score:2)
I hire programmers with a proven track record of actually "shipping" product. I could care less what mind bending interview problems you can solve or what school you may have attended.
Recent and Related (Score:3)
A couple of interesting and related things on the subject of hiring strategies appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal.
First, a fascinating review [wsj.com] of the book "The Rare Find [amazon.com]" by George Anders. The review beings with this interesting anecdote and gets better after that:
Next, James Taranto theorizes [wsj.com] that college degrees are proxy for IQ Tests, which it is illegal to use in hiring. It raises the question of whether FaceBook's Programming Challenges will not become the target of lawsuits on the basis of "differential impact" as in Griggs V. Duke Power Co. [wikipedia.org]
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Notice also that employment law in this area has changed and that subsequent cases are also relevant, e.g. Wards Cove Packing Co
Ooh! I'm One of the Liars! (Score:3)
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This statement is false.
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Problem tester doesn't even work. (Score:3)
The facebook page linked in TFA has a set of problems that's meant to have an auto-grading robot (which I presume then suggests to FB that it might want to hire you). However the robot has been down for months with no word on when it is coming back.
So, how do we 'apply' ?
mod parent up (Score:2)
Here's hoping a ton of hits might convince facebook to get off their ass and bring it back up.
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Well, I can firmly state that ... (Score:2)
Everything I've ever posted on /. is a lie.
(How should the program classify this post? ;-)
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Well, I'd just say "I'll be burned at the stake."
There are lots of ways to defeat software (or humans) whose actions are based on knowing the truth or falsehood of something someone else says. That sounds like a simple concept, but there are a few logical problems with it.
I was tempted to suggest that we try polling readers about whether they could solve the puzzle, but of course the first person who gives convincing evidence of how they solved it would give away the the solution, making it impossible
I am smart enough... (Score:3)
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Hell! You've got that right. Didja ever wonder why the producers of "The Social Network" did not get sued for libel? I didn't either.
Hope more companies do this! (Score:2)
Finally it could be a way to extract myself from such pedestrian IT work as a highly educated but poorly certified person.
How to be a Star Engineer (Score:2)
I got asked the man hole question (Score:2)
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Also this [xkcd.com]. And the one I posted above. Maybe Slashdot should just start putting these in the summary.
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"For the rights to view my solution to your programming challenge, you will be required to purchase a license to view the code, at $300 per viewing eyeball. For the rights to implement and/or execute the solution, you will need to purchase a separate license, with a purchase price of $10,000 per cpu core expected to run it, and $5,000 per cpu core that has the potential to run it (ie, a separate device on the same network). I look forward to our future business relationship, and will assume a breach of cont
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Socialism and a rigidly progressive tax system.
The solution isn't hard. Getting the legislation passed is the problem.
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I always ask them what they do when they aren't at work, and what the last book they read was. Somebody with a passion for their hobby is more interesting than somebody who "plays with their dog and watches television", and more likely to have a passion for their work... Somebody who read a Dean Koontz book as their last is probably not the deepest thinker (apologies to Mr. Koontz).
I've had some crazy and some crazy stupid interviews. I've walked away from a lot of those offers.