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Please stop the coding challenges

(blackentropy.bearblog.dev)
261 points CrazyEmi | 1 comments | 15 Nov 24 15:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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simonw ◴[15 Nov 24 16:00 UTC] No.42148072[source]▶
> This is like asking a Ruby developer to debug PHP as a test of flexibility.

Sounds like an OK test to me. Great (senior) developers should be able to do that kind of thing. Categorizing yourself exclusively as "a Ruby developer" is a career trap.

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kstrauser ◴[15 Nov 24 16:37 UTC] No.42148471[source]▶
I once got hired after passing a JavaScript test, never having written a single line of it. The challenge was more conversational, like:

Interviewer: Now reverse this array.

Me: OK, in Python that would be array.reverse(), or reversed(array). I bet JS has one of those, probably the .reverse method.

Interviewer: Great guess!

That was genuinely fun. I came out of it feeling like I'd learned a few things, and the other person got to see how I'd reason about a new problem.

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1. ForHackernews ◴[15 Nov 24 16:57 UTC] No.42148654[source]▶
I interviewed for a Scala role one time despite never having written it professionally. I suppose it's obscure enough that they couldn't afford to be too picky.

It was a pair programming exercise and so with some help from the interviewer and the IDE I was able to fumble through to a working result. I agree it was fun and educational.