I have no side code projects to show • Hacker News Board

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#121

Post by peteretep » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 7:07 AM UTC

jknoepfler wrote: post #24

eps wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The range/xrange question was likely to check if you were a fraud. Having interviewed close to a hundred people in a year for a senior C dev position I can assure you that people lie like you wouldn't believe. They cheat with take-home tasks, they show others' code as their own. And that's in the system programming circles, where the level of professionalism is typically much higher than in app/web development areas.…

On the other hand, I'm a skilled dev with only a smattering of python experience, but if you asked me this question I'd have no idea and wouldn't think twice about looking up the python docs for both. What are you actually asking? P.s. I don't believe anyone actually fails fizz buzz.

I've also never seen anyone fail FizzBuzz in the wild; I feel like even the barest of 20m phone prescreenings should be able to avoid that...

I was asked for my second job ever - on the phone - for commands that would list files in a directory, change directory, and create a symbolic link. I guess I've started doing that kind of prescreen now too

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#122

Post by drvdevd » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 7:56 AM UTC

srssays wrote: post #86

unethical_ban wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need to be rationalized. I don't know it without googling it, but I can still get by writing some useful automation for Ops work. Granted, I haven't interviewed for a full-time Python gig, but even the one or two REALLY sharp programmers I know need to reference the web for a lot of stdlib stuff they don't use often.

xrange vs range is basic competence for any Python 2 programmer. They are two of the most commonly used functions and have very distinct uses. I think that was the point of the original post, however, that the question is so basic it is actually insulting - like interviewing a doctor and asking the difference between red and white blood cells.

I don't know this. And I don't care. I don't self-identify as anything near a "Python programmer" and yet I've written, modified, read, and debugged (and put into production at times), let's say 100's of thousands of lines of Python since the late 90s. Not a ton, perhaps, but I certainly feel qualified to write it.

I'm forced to maintain (or deploy) other people's Python code all the time. Personally, I would rarely choose it for a team project I have to maintain (if the choice is mine) because I've seen most teams commit the same annoying type errors over and over in every dynamic language I've ever used, including epecially Python. I've worked with much more competent Python programmers than myself who still do this.

But if I was on your team, I wouldn't complain and my code would be somewhere between pretty good to great. I would help the team ship that Python and ship it well.

I'm not sure what this rant says more about: me or this 'range vs xrange' question?

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#123

Post by temp20160423 » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

jeremywho wrote: post #59

Wait, I thought Amazon is NOT the place for work/life balance. Why is a guy that wants work/life balance working at Amazon?

I worked for a remote office of AMZN's and found that the office I was at had great work/life balance. At any big company, work/life balance will be very team-dependent.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#124

Post by kosma » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:42 AM UTC

highCs wrote: post #91

I agree with the author. You can't judge the passion of someone by his behaviour, that's silly. You can be as well a passionate programmer when you don't code home than when you do. However, coding home has one - big - perk: it's almost the only way for you to code something from scratch. Alone. You and your code. You and your progress rate. You and your bugs. You and your choices. You and your mess. Nobody to smooth…

This, a thousand times. I'm an excellent bug-fixer/chaos-manager/refactorer and this led me to believe I should be an excellent project-starter as well. It has bit me in the ass more times than I can count (although I'm getting better with each new project).

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#125

Post by tzs » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 12:06 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #37

dvcrn wrote: post #13

Here's a little example what happened to me: I interviewed with a company. Naturally they asked for my side projects which I showed them. We talked about technical challenges, scaling, interesting bits of codes - all these kind of things. They were really excited. I passed the interviews and got the job. Fast forward a couple month, still working on my side projects, some of which started generating a couple hundred…

So if you have any other interests, such as rebuilding old cars, would that boss still have a problem with it? That is the thing I don't get, is how some companies see a big difference between regular hobbies and programing related hobbies.

It might actually make some sense for a programmer's boss to be concerned about side programming projects, even if they have nothing to do with what the company does, but not be concerned about outside interests like rebuilding old cars.

Programming all day at work and then spending a lot of your non-work time programming too could put you at higher risk for getting burned out on programming. Spending your non-work time rebuilding old cars probably won't affect your programming at work.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the boss should be able to make you stop programming at home. Many people can program at work and at home and not get burned out, and it should be up to the programmer to decide if they are such a person. I'm just saying that programming related hobbies are more likely to affect programming work than are non-programming hobbies.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#126

Post by oddlyaromatic » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 12:54 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #125

derekp7 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you have any other interests, such as rebuilding old cars, would that boss still have a problem with it? That is the thing I don't get, is how some companies see a big difference between regular hobbies and programing related hobbies.

It might actually make some sense for a programmer's boss to be concerned about side programming projects, even if they have nothing to do with what the company does, but not be concerned about outside interests like rebuilding old cars. Programming all day at work and then spending a lot of your non-work time programming too could put you at higher risk for getting burned out on programming. Spending your non-work t…

Equally there could be beneficial aspects to working on different coding problems outside a main job- improving skills, learning new tools, whatever. But that's not the important thing. To me, the important thing for an employer should be performance: "I have these expectations for the role, how is the employee doing in relation to those expectations, and are they being paid over or under the market value for the position?" Even if the employee could be better if they didn't have a side project, figuring out balance and maintaining job performance are skills in and of themselves. If an employee can do that, great, if not, bummer. The external cause doesn't matter. What matters is the employee's judgement in the self care they need to do in order to meet the needs of their job. No need for employer to borrow trouble by trying to control non-work activities and incurring bad will.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#127

Post by je42 » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #10

rabidrat wrote: post #4

I want to work in a group where they appreciate that I was basically born to code. That despite my youthful features, I have still been coding for over 30 years. That I can do many tasks in an hour, that other people would take days to do. That I will spend an extra 3 hours to put a cherry on top, just because I can. I may even do it on a Saturday, because code is what I like to do with my spare time too. So when the…

The range/xrange question was likely to check if you were a fraud. Having interviewed close to a hundred people in a year for a senior C dev position I can assure you that people lie like you wouldn't believe. They cheat with take-home tasks, they show others' code as their own. And that's in the system programming circles, where the level of professionalism is typically much higher than in app/web development areas.…

I ask similar questions if somebody says he/she is python expert. failing that is not an immediate issue, but i would continue probing by asking other questions on this level. to figure out what the "expert" label means according to my own experience.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#128

Post by je42 » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

highCs wrote: post #91

I agree with the author. You can't judge the passion of someone by his behaviour, that's silly. You can be as well a passionate programmer when you don't code home than when you do. However, coding home has one - big - perk: it's almost the only way for you to code something from scratch. Alone. You and your code. You and your progress rate. You and your bugs. You and your choices. You and your mess. Nobody to smooth…

there another side to it. coding alone making all decisions on the fly and as needed can also be very relaxing. in the big company, most of the work is getting agreement; fighting legacy code; planning transitions; making sure everybody is on the same page as they contribute...

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#129

Post by jghn » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 4:11 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #46

vigrante wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty elaborate story to rationalize the fact you didn't know the difference between range and xrange....

Unless you've written a lot of Python 2, or ported a lot of it in my case, then you wouldn't know. It's a stupid question with little basis in actually seeing if someone know's what they are talking about.

Really? I used python for a few years a long while back and I thought that this was common knowledge. Perhaps it was the timing of it all as I now that I google around a bit most of the SO posts and such are from when I was writing Python.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#130

Post by jghn » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

je42 wrote: post #128

highCs wrote: post #91

I agree with the author. You can't judge the passion of someone by his behaviour, that's silly. You can be as well a passionate programmer when you don't code home than when you do. However, coding home has one - big - perk: it's almost the only way for you to code something from scratch. Alone. You and your code. You and your progress rate. You and your bugs. You and your choices. You and your mess. Nobody to smooth…

there another side to it. coding alone making all decisions on the fly and as needed can also be very relaxing. in the big company, most of the work is getting agreement; fighting legacy code; planning transitions; making sure everybody is on the same page as they contribute...

Exactly. I have seen people who are fantastic developers when working on solo projects but start to struggle when placed in a business/group environment. Once things like business priorities start informing what people are going to be working on when, once folks need to start coordinating with other developers and their own quirks it starts going downhill