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Any test that does not allow you to google the optimal answer to the specified problem is not a real world test and a flat waste of everybody's time. You should be allowed to google and rated on the answer you select from the search results. If you fail to google, you should be immediately disqualified.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Does anyone else think that's a fundamentally broken way to find a good programmer?
Yes, its fundamentally broken, but it cuts both ways. If they reject you because you didn't give the answer that they found by googling, instead assessing the answer you did give, do you really want to work with that team? If its some HR flunkie that filtering you out, what caliber of engineer are they like to have working for that company? If if the actual devs, how savvy must they be if they can't see past a googled programming problem answer? In either case, do you really want to be working with those developers?
Of course, this only matters if you already have a paying job.
5G -- more lies faster.
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patbob wrote: Of course, this only matters if you already have a paying job.
Yeah exactly. Truth be known I wouldn't care at all about this... but I did get hit by the pandemic job-wise. I was on an American Express contract and they downsized. The folks at Amex are awesome, but welcome to 2020 you know. Anyway, totally agree... it's a different ballgame when you do and don't have a job or contract.
Jeremy Falcon
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ida gone for the fizzbuzz test and just asked like how do u debug your code ? and what was the most challenging thing you did...and like just sit there and think...can this guy handle all the crap code the last guy left behind and not to mention all the hidden bugs... could he last a few months ...can he make the cake and eat it too....and if it was a guy with 25 years in the industry.. well i'd ask him nothing ..just ask him like what kinda projects he did ..... how long would it take him to learn quantum computing and if he can write a sample program using quantum c++
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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First off, a reasonably obvious solution to the coding problem is to move nonzero elements down, and then set the remaining elements to zero. It uses one array, makes one pass, and moves each element at most one time. It was the first thing that came to my mind. There is an STL algorithm, remove(), that does most of the work, but I would have needed to look it up. If you say "I think there is an STL algorithm for this," it covers all bases whether the interviewer wants you to know the algorithm or wants you to code it by hand. It's just barely possible that in spite of your experience, you aren't a great coder, in which case the coding test worked exactly as expected.
Second, who are you to say what the best interviewing technique is? Do you have any data to back up your claim that coding interviews are broken? I hate coding tests too, but I have come to respect them:
- They catch people who are lying on their resumes. If you've ever done hiring, you know that's a big problem.
- They catch self-taught people who skipped over algorithms and data structures, if that is important to your company.
- They select people who prepped for the interview, people who really want the job.
- Over-training on algorithms for software devs is exactly like over-training on anatomy and physiology for physicians, or over-training on procedures for pilots and astronauts. It's not enough just to have seen an algorithm (or an organ, or a procedure), you need to be able to call that memory immediately to mind, even under stress situations. Coding tests select people who have really dug in and studied. and rejects people who coasted.
If you are a top company paying $200k for an engineer, this is the kind of engineer you want. If you are just writing CRUD screens, maybe this is overkill, but hey, every company wants a 10x developer if they can find one.
If you are a developer of a certain age, like me, you resent coding tests because they didn't used to be required. If you are a recent grad, the knowledge that you have to run a gauntlet of coding tests is baked into your expectations. Times change old man. Get used to it.
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Yeah dude I'm not going to *fully* respond to your angry little post. You don't know who I am or what I've done. Go insult someone else and learn some people skills what you're at it.
Jeremy Falcon
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I also followed your links on your profile and your websites look terrible. So you are clearly not qualified in the slightest to speak about frontend work. Feel free to give me some silly notion like you really didn't care about those sites. I have sites that I don't really care about that look 1,000 times better. Maybe you should look in the mirror when casting judgement bro. 
Jeremy Falcon
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Wow, talk about angry little posts (two of them).
- My web site was not designed to seek your praise. It serves me as it is.
- My answer was not designed to insult you, but to address the question of whether coding interviews are broken.
- You only want to hurl insults and not talk about the relevance of the answer. So, like whatever dude.
- I may not have the people skills needed to stroke your ego, but they are sufficient to figure out that lame code, arrogance, and self-righteousness are why you failed that interview. Humility will serve you better next time.
Best of luck on your next coding test. They aren't going away any time soon.
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Yeah... ok now. There's always one little angry dude on CP. Go run along now... go play by yourself. Nobody wants you...
Jeremy Falcon
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They cared about the details of your solution to some coding task? Yeah. Broken.
Coding questions filter out those who can't write a line of code to save their lives. Over the years I've found that filter to be quite handy.
But, for those who can code, the coding question is a forgettable formality.
It doesn't matter whether your code works well or is clever. You're just showing you can write code.
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Agreed. But anyway... gonna bow out of this thread and get back to work... we have a rouge post here filled with angst who's gonna ruin it for everyone.
Thanks for the response though. It's spot on.
Jeremy Falcon
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It is unfortunately, something that has never -not- been broken. Quite frankly, I don't see that there is a good solution to it either.
I have interviewed people for IT jobs of all kinds. Some of the candidates I have selected have been gems, others have been rancid sacks of smelly refuse. The problem for an interviewer, for even someone with a background in the area being interviewed for, is that you can have someone that looks great on paper, and even presents themselves well in interviews, but turns out to be completely ineffective on the job. On the other hand, you can have someone who would be perfect on the job, but doesn't present well. Of course, you also have the people that present well because they really are great on the job. You also have the ones that don't present well because they really aren't good.
So in the brief interactions you have with each candidate, how can you possibly determine which quadrant they fit into? It can't be done.
It is all the same as in school. There are those who endear themselves to the instructor, and seem to ace every test, but don't really know anything on the subject and couldn't apply it if they tried. Then there are those who just sit in the classroom and absorb the information almost by osmosis, understand it like it was second nature, can apply it, and in some cases even turn around and teach it to someone else; but barely scrapes by with a passing grade, and never seems to get on the instructors good graces. Sometimes there is that one kid that just struggles with everything and gets nowhere, until one day someone gives him the right help. Then suddenly it all clicks, and he gets it all and starts outperforming everyone else. When you sit in a room with these people on a daily basis, you eventually figure out who is who. You'd be hard up to identify them in the first day or two of class.
----------
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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Totally agree with you. You fail on how to build install a kitchen sink test, but no one in the company installs kitchen sinks. Yep been there.
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I win again! Yay!
Last chance tomorrow, before it reverts to ... @Peter-in-2780 ... 
A threesome - predict the French red wine upset enemies at the prow! (10)
A threesome
predict FORECAST
the French LE
red wine CLARET
upset (anag)
enemies FOES
at the prow! FORECASTLE Three clues in one: all the same solution!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Thats tricky!
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Hah! You wait for tomorrows! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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So, how much time it takes you to make it? I am sure these are your own creation.
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Yesterdays took a while - I thought of the word while drifting off to sleep, and "fleshed it out" during the period between the cat jumping up and down on my bladder because he wants his breakfast and my getting up - so about an hour or so of "thinking time"
Todays was about ten minutes.
Same process: think of a word, break it up, twist it about, think about synonyms ... and then nail it all together and hack off the bits that don't work.
Tomorrows? Well, version one was about ten minutes, including some Google research to check validity.
Version two just flowed together and was complete in sixty seconds or so.
If you are interested, version one - now discarded - was "First letter of the alphabet". Want to try and solve it?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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alpha? (First letter of the Greek alphabet and start of the word 'alphabet')
or t? (first letter of 'The alphabet')
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Nope: four letters.
Very close though: the Phoenician alphabet - Wikipedia[^] predates Greek (indeed, "alpha" is derived from the Phoenician "alep") and since before Phoenician all written material was hieroglyph based, it's first letter was the solution I wanted: ALEP - first letter of any alphabet
But you'd have to be a true word nerd to know that, and ALEP isn't an English word anyway, so I decided to go with something else entirely.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: and ALEP isn't an English word anyway
And that's where Hebrew comes in handy
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Ah, the "threesome" was related to the three clues. I was desperately trying to find some connection to well, other meanings of "threesome" that could apply to naval types!
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There are other meanings? 
He said, whistling innocently ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Well,
For what it's worth, I found forecastle about 20 minutes after you posted it. But I couldn't make it fit with "A threesome -" so I stayed silent. If you would have put that above or below the clue the solution would have been posted.
I spent about another 10 minutes looking at it and couldn't make "A threesome" work. Your clue also reads as Gameplayer with a gamay wine or Hyperreal with a syrah but they didn't really fit the definition so I folded and went on about my day.
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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