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Interviews are a terrible way to hire tech candidates. Not only do you not get a real sense of the candidate, they often weed out good candidates in favor of bad ones. Don't hire anyone?
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Nearly all bad hires are men. Don't hire men.
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This is one of the best interview techniques I've read, and I'd be happy to have a potential employer use this on me 
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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If I were unemployed, I certainly would be thrilled to get paid for my time interviewing. Line up two or three interviews a week and I wouldn't even need a job. Hmmm...I foresee a whole new career path--the professional interviewee! 
Marc
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Sooo... Unemployment collector?
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I have mixed feelings about:
Quote: RULE #1 — Give them the weekend to solve the problem.
This is where I and Eric slightly disagree. 2 hours just isn’t enough time to see how well someone can come up with an appropriate solution.
What I like to do is invite them to the office on a Friday and go over the problem at hand and how I would like for them to solve it. Then I’ll hand it off to them and set up time on Monday to review their solution.
Partly from the potential scope creep in the authors preference. Does 'the weekend' just mean a 3 or 4 hour task instead of 2, or are you expecting me to give up my normal plans and put ~16 hours in on the interview. And partly because having to take at least parts of two days off while still being employed on short notice might not be easy; if the scope is two full days of coding probably take full days off because I've normally got stuff that needs done on the weekend that I can't otherwise put off.
Also from the potential perspective of someone who's employed and looking for a greener pasture is that at my current employer I'm required to disclose any (paid?) side projects to avoid potential conflicts of interest (and because my employer reserves the right to bid on any of them directly; although these'd be small enough that even at $100/h I doubt they'd be interested). I can just imagine how well "I'm being paid to write a code sample as part of a job interview" would go over; probably about as well as using my direct manager as a reference before I've already decided to take the job.  Without rereading the policy, I'm not sure if I could end-run it by counter-proposing the amount either be added to any signing/etc bonus if I got the job or donated to local charity otherwise.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Medium[^]:
There's the problem. Voodoo doesn't work.
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I have personally seen some of my friends w/ great programming skills getting eliminated in first round only. That's kind of sad but that's how it works.
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The perfect way to always hire the best candidates doesn't exist. Deciding on who to hire is a fuzzy, complex process done by people who can only spend a small percentage of their time and energy conducting interviews.
You'll eventually make a hiring decision you regret no matter what your process is. If you blame your bad judgment and resolve to always make perfect decisions in the future, you're fooling yourself. Hiring is always a gamble.
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A new global survey of developers (PDF) reinforces what anyone in the tech industry has known all along: That those who build software for a living are concerned about keeping their skills up-to-date, consider themselves autodidacts when it comes to learning new things, and really like using open-source software. Or you can stay current by ignoring new stuff
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Kent Sharkey wrote: concerned about keeping their skills up-to-date
That's only drones who only care about their resume and how to get the next job once their current employer realizes they can't actually put anything into practice.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
That's only drones who only care about their resume and how to get the next job once their current employer realizes they can't actually put anything into practice.
I agree: better to be really good at one thing than just okay at five things whilst learning the sixth.
Unless its just all variants of VB. 
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R. Giskard Reventlov wrote: Unless its just all variants of VB.
"We've got Y10K coming up and we see you know VB..." 
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Unfortunately, developers seem to be caught in the death march spiral of thinking they have to keep up to date with all the new stuff when in reality, learning how to actually be an engineer/designer/architect, heck, programmer, would be a lot more effective.
Marc
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When you know the basics nothing's new anymore 
That said I do enjoy spending some time with new, hot, hip and trendy languages, libraries and frameworks
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I think there's a difference between staying current and improving your knowledge. For example, I read Eric Evans's excellent book on Domain-Driven-Design recently, and it made me look at software development in a whole new light. That was improving my knowledge. I have also recently been learning Node.js, so that was staying current.
Good software developers need to do both.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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This new format allows us to get 20–26% higher compression ratios over Zopfli. "One pill makes you smaller"
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you're showing your age Kent
go ask alice
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I'm always showing my age.
/creak
TTFN - Kent
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As long as he's not showing anything else 
Sarcasm - it's not just a verbal skill - it's a lifestyle!
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Before it degenerates... don't forget the KS-Rule 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Which age is that? There's been a fairly constant drip of cover versions[^] (Wikipedia).
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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All of them I am stardust, I am golden, and I am timeless. (I vaguely recall a better monologue in a movie, but I'm too lazy to go searching now).
TTFN - Kent
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Kent Sharkey wrote: a new compression algorithm for the internet
Simples; just remove the cat pictures and videos. Done.
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Comparison of Brotli, Deflate, Zopfli, LZMA, LZHAM and Bzip2 Compression Algorithms
And don't forget the diddly doddly maffah whoogly, shing shong shagga lagga! 
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