All my experience in trying to hire developers has been wading through an endless stream of people who were just useless.
Me: I want to represent a 2d grid, what data structure should we use?
Them: A string?
This was someone applying for senior engineer. Others I've had filled their CV with SQL related acronyms. But couldn't explain what a foreign key was and then stubbornly insisted that at their current corp they would never ever use foreign keys in their SQL database!
I've had senior engineer when asked how to check if we had a 2d array with an item at x,y tell me if anything is on the same column or row, they couldn't do it, couldn't even verbalise how to approach it.
"Web Developers" who didn't know the difference between GET and POST. Web Developers that have never heard of PUT or what it would be used for.
I have a question I usually ask which is "How would you convert a Julian yyyy-ddd date string to a military yyyy-mm-dd date string?" (I explain how a Julian date works if they aren't familiar with it.)
The answer that almost guarantees I'll hire you is "there's got to be a library function for that, so I look in the manual". Almost as good is somebody whiteboarding how they'd convert ddd to mm-dd (and then account for leap years, etc.)
I get a disturbing number of people who say things like "I would communicate with the person asking for this to see what they're really intending blah blah"
My favorite answer was on a phone interview where he just hung up and wouldn't answer when we called back.
> I get a disturbing number of people who say things like "I would communicate with the person asking for this to see what they're really intending blah blah"
Sounds like they know this question is a “gotcha” question but just misinterpreted which direction you were going with it.
Some will ask a question like this expecting you to treat it like a puzzle and outline how you’d solve it as-is; others ask it as a way to probe how you’ll deal with strange or misguided requests (the case you noted as disturbing); and others yet will ask it to see how you’d practically solve it (your intention).
Seems like a bad interview question without context regarding kind of answer you’re looking for.
No, it's a pretty good interview question because it tells me if somebody's instinct is to reinvent the wheel or not. What I didn't expect was how many people couldn't say how a wheel even works.
People are not generally answering interview questions based on instinct, but rather based on what they think the interviewer wants to hear to get the job. I would have interpreted this is as a leetcode style algo question and started by treating it as such, even though IRL my first instinct would be "get a lib that does it". Awful, awful strategy.
It appears that either answer would be accepted, and so I'm fine with it. If it really is there is one correct answer then I'm against this. This feels like a problem where a good enough solution can be done in the time of an interview if you do it by hand (though if anyone knows about dates they will expect there is a lifetime of fixing special cases left if you don't use the library)
I prefer fizz-buzz as a question because it is obvious there isn't a library. It is also a problem you should be able to do in an interview. It has enough weirdness that there is no best answer, despite having several workable paths you could try.
I mean, any answer is "accepted" in the sense that the whole point is to let me see how you think about solving simple problems. What has been distressing is seeing the number of applicants who can't even try, when it's the trying I want to see.
It is shocking how often there is one acceptable correct answer and they don't care about the approach to solving problems only the score in a pass fail way.
Its not. Any interview question where you are looking for a specific answer is already suspect, but especially if you don't properly provide context for the question in what you would expect, things become a shit show.
If you would ask someone to write a piece of code, and a part of the problem is this conversion, then you would be right to expect they reach for a library, but even if they don't you would be giving them the opportunity to explain themselves, and judge the explanation, not the answer. Also, if your test is "does this person reach for a library at the right time", you could do a lot less esoteric and confusing by just asking them to add 10 days to a date. If you just ask this one specific problem, it is likely they assume you are looking for them to demonstrate the skills involved in actually solving the problem, i.e. leetcode.
This is also why some people give you the blabla answer, because it is indeed very unlikely that someone needs to do this legitimately. This is because its a toy problem. Someone's professional reaction to the problem in isolation should indeed be: this is weird, I've never been asked something like this, what's up?
Finally, even though the question is terrible, I would still rate the "whatsup?" response higher than the "leapyear" response. I would want a developer to triple check that this problem needs solving, before they would solve it themselves.
Finally finally, if there's one answer to one question that, when answered trivially in a way literally taught in most basic programming courses (use the standard library / a third party library), makes them a "guaranteed hire", I also have significant doubts about the level of talent you are bringing in, as any experienced interviewer will tell you that qualified people will get important questions wrong, and unqualified people will get important questions right.
I understand that this reaction might be quite harsh, and I know better than anyone that its hard and time consuming to do good interviews, but please consider that you are rejecting people who may be very confused and sad by this way of rejection.
But that's why the context of the question is important. It's not clear from your comment, but I'd give a different answer if the question was strictly academic in nature (reinventing the wheel) or focused on practical work realities (use a library).
Even using a library isn't that practical. It may be the zeitgeist in JavaScript but that doesn't mean it's actually a good idea. Nobody remembers left-pad? If you're writing Java or Python then checking if your date class can already do it is a good idea.
I've managed to work in tech for 30 years without ever significantly coming into contact with javascript professionally. I hire Ada and C programmers for a stodgy defense contractor where we have to wear ties and it takes 6 months to get a new library approved; unicorns don't really thrive in this environment (or in Fairfax County in general).
I believe that exact framing of Uncharted is the origin of the term “ludonarrative dissonance”, where the character’s motivations and morals are in contrast to the extreme violence they are committing because of the nature of it being a video game.
Definitely one of those things I didn’t question when I was younger, but as I get older it’s hard not to see it.
EDIT: I was wrong, the term originated from an analysis of Bioshock, but Uncharted was later held up as a strong example of this. And it’s more generally about the contrast between narrative and gameplay mechanics.
I know that it was originally coined for BS1, but I think its application to BS:I is an interesting case. That was a game about American violence, and featured gratuitous amounts of violence... though it only works from that birds-eye view, right? In terms of the ground-level story, it feels distinctly weird - maybe even grody - to be mowing down hundreds of people, literally tearing their faces open with a mechanical device, in the process of trying to save the Disney Princess deuteragonist (who actually calls you out on your actions early in the game).
Except... the game is ALSO about how time, and the shifting (lost) priorities and understandings of an ideology, are often at the source of violence disconnected from reason. The game is full of people doing things divorced from the original rationale, a veil of manufactured righteousness thrown over it all (patriotism, revolution, a debt that must be repaid), and taking their behavior to an extreme because they don't really understand the true core of why they're doing what they're doing. Kind of like... playing a game that attempts to say something meaningful and sophisticated about society, but that's built on the bones of a gameplay loop that originated with full-throttle demon-slaying action. (Well, actually, Nazi-slaying. Hmm...)
...I don't know how clear I'm being, but the gist of it is that I think Infinite knew what it was doing a lot more than people give it credit for. It's kind of a jumble on purpose.
I thought about this playing Just Cause 2. So I go to this island, blow up all of their oil, gas, and power infrastructure, killing hordes of security guards who are just locals working the few jobs available to them.
Yeah I was in a bar one night and was peckish, so tried to buy a packet of crisps. They said minimum spend on card was £5, so I said just charge me the £5 it's fine.
Card got blocked as they thought it was fraud. Annoying! And not something inebriated me wanted to deal with at 2am.
Ok. Maybe they protected me from myself, but still!
This is why at my current place we are not supposed to do any dev without an SME on the call. We do the development and share the screen and get immediate feedback as we are working in real time! It's great.
Man, pre big-internet was so hard to find information on games. I remember for the original tomb raider a friend needed a guide, so I wrote and printed out them a guide for the full game, since I played it pretty obsessively.
I love the clojure, but I think a big downside is not being able to use it at work and now work feels like I'm being forced to work with stone age tools in comparison. That gets quite depressing sometimes.
Sometimes I think I was happier before I learned Clojure.
All my experience in trying to hire developers has been wading through an endless stream of people who were just useless.
Me: I want to represent a 2d grid, what data structure should we use? Them: A string?
This was someone applying for senior engineer. Others I've had filled their CV with SQL related acronyms. But couldn't explain what a foreign key was and then stubbornly insisted that at their current corp they would never ever use foreign keys in their SQL database!
I've had senior engineer when asked how to check if we had a 2d array with an item at x,y tell me if anything is on the same column or row, they couldn't do it, couldn't even verbalise how to approach it.
"Web Developers" who didn't know the difference between GET and POST. Web Developers that have never heard of PUT or what it would be used for.
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