DHH anti-whiteboard movement(twitter.com)
twitter.com
DHH anti-whiteboard movement
https://twitter.com/i/moments/835942450103451649
4 comments
I'm a very old timer...and I think people have forgotten that there was a time here in Silicon Valley when it was enough to be someone with programming experience. The interviews - such as they were - were mostly just to see if you were someone who wasn't a complete jerk. As the supply of programmers has steadily increased, the hoops to jump through have also increased. So now it is acceptable to test people and just generally ask any lame question because "you are the hiring manager". Experience and education should be enough - I'm really not clear about why it isn't. (Not saying that programmers don't have different skills - and different experience. But, for the most part, most programmers can be taught enough to do most things.)
> I'm a very old timer...and I think people have forgotten that there was a time here in Silicon Valley when it was enough to be someone with programming experience. [snip] Experience and education should be enough - I'm really not clear about why it isn't.
There are people who managed to get a CS (or similar) degree but can't program or problem solve, but manage to get hired at enough places to appear to have experience, but still can't program or problem solve. That's why I interview with a programming programming problem that I hope is at least a little bit interesting.
There are people who managed to get a CS (or similar) degree but can't program or problem solve, but manage to get hired at enough places to appear to have experience, but still can't program or problem solve. That's why I interview with a programming programming problem that I hope is at least a little bit interesting.
The real key is problem-solving ability: can a prospective hire get a grip on a real-world problem, and then break things down into solvable components.
Real-world problem solving is often very different than the very clean-cut computer-science exercises that companies tend to throw at candidates, which nominally have a set of solutions, only one of which is "correct" (in terms of computational complexity).
Personally, I'm a big fan of one of two styles of interviewing.
Pair interviews are great, because they are the closest thing to a real-world test-drive that you can get. During a pair interview, you work on real production code, with a member of the team that you will be working with, and at the end, it's pretty easy to tell whether or not the Thunderbirds are "go".
For non-pairing teams, I usually go with a simple (think "fizzbuzz") programming exercise, followed by a combination of collaborative problem-solving sessions with members of the team, exploring the candidate's background (what problems have they solved in the past?), and also a check to make sure that there's a fit in terms of engineering culture (somebody that hates TDD will hate working with me, for instance).
Real-world problem solving is often very different than the very clean-cut computer-science exercises that companies tend to throw at candidates, which nominally have a set of solutions, only one of which is "correct" (in terms of computational complexity).
Personally, I'm a big fan of one of two styles of interviewing.
Pair interviews are great, because they are the closest thing to a real-world test-drive that you can get. During a pair interview, you work on real production code, with a member of the team that you will be working with, and at the end, it's pretty easy to tell whether or not the Thunderbirds are "go".
For non-pairing teams, I usually go with a simple (think "fizzbuzz") programming exercise, followed by a combination of collaborative problem-solving sessions with members of the team, exploring the candidate's background (what problems have they solved in the past?), and also a check to make sure that there's a fit in terms of engineering culture (somebody that hates TDD will hate working with me, for instance).
Algo/puzzle/riddle is not the same as whiteboard. I'm all for getting rid of the former, but I have no problem getting up and writing on a whiteboard as long as it's used for its correct purpose, viz. as a tool for talking through a problem together.
I once had an interviewer give me a somewhat interesting puzzle to work through on the whiteboard, but then he got all stammery and flustered when I asked a few simple follow-up questions about it. I think there are people out there who just can't handle humans and have to use the whiteboard as a shield.
I once had an interviewer give me a somewhat interesting puzzle to work through on the whiteboard, but then he got all stammery and flustered when I asked a few simple follow-up questions about it. I think there are people out there who just can't handle humans and have to use the whiteboard as a shield.
While problem-solving is fine, I am not a fan of algorithms questions.
Not because algorithms are unimportant, but because being able to code a heapsort from memory is, from a skills perspective, effectively useless.
As the creator of Homebrew put it: "90% of our engineers use the software you wrote, but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off."
To me, it is enough to know what algorithms you could bring to bear on a given problem, and have a rough knowledge of their complexity.
The things I care more about are: Can you tackle a messy-real world problem, one that doesn't have a clear solution? Do you collaborate effectively as a member of a team? What about your software engineering skills -- is your code well-tested and readable? That sort of thing.
That latter point is important. The best engineer in the world is a business liability if nobody else can maintain their code.
Not because algorithms are unimportant, but because being able to code a heapsort from memory is, from a skills perspective, effectively useless.
As the creator of Homebrew put it: "90% of our engineers use the software you wrote, but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off."
To me, it is enough to know what algorithms you could bring to bear on a given problem, and have a rough knowledge of their complexity.
The things I care more about are: Can you tackle a messy-real world problem, one that doesn't have a clear solution? Do you collaborate effectively as a member of a team? What about your software engineering skills -- is your code well-tested and readable? That sort of thing.
That latter point is important. The best engineer in the world is a business liability if nobody else can maintain their code.
> Algo/puzzle/riddle is not the same as whiteboard. I'm all for getting rid of the former, but I have no problem getting up and writing on a whiteboard as long as it's used for its correct purpose, viz. as a tool for talking through a problem together.
I agree.
We did a few interviews last year, and we had a few whiteboard-ish (people could do it in their heads if they preferred) questions.
However, the whole purpose of these questions (and this was made explicit to the candidate) was to serve as an anchor for a technical discussion, and as a tool to observe them reason about a problem. And as a way to observe them asking questions, because we were intentionally incomplete (and candidates knew).
I felt it worked very well for us.
Also, sometimes such an interview would just be plain fun for all involved. We took it as a strong signal if that happened.
I agree.
We did a few interviews last year, and we had a few whiteboard-ish (people could do it in their heads if they preferred) questions.
However, the whole purpose of these questions (and this was made explicit to the candidate) was to serve as an anchor for a technical discussion, and as a tool to observe them reason about a problem. And as a way to observe them asking questions, because we were intentionally incomplete (and candidates knew).
I felt it worked very well for us.
Also, sometimes such an interview would just be plain fun for all involved. We took it as a strong signal if that happened.
What's with the artifacty JPG? Is this Twitter's idea of curated content?
A good number of these confessions are downright embarrassing.
Just as a minor aside, for anyone interviewing out there, don't fret about syntax that much. If you forget, tell your interviewer "i forgot the exact syntax, but let's assume it takes in x,y,z".
The key thing I'm look for is an understanding of what a function does and how you're going leverage that to solve the larger problem at hand. I'd hope other interviewers are the same way.