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Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

erikmcclure.com

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Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#121

Post by Sodman »

neogodless wrote: post #67
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #25

Click-Bait title, and judging by comments here everyone went for the click-bait. The author doesn't actually use factorio for interviewing, and thinks it world be a bad idea to do so. A more accurate title would be "Comparison between Factorio and Software Engineering Concepts" - but that wouldn't have gotten it to the top of HN so fast, nor gotten so many comments so quickly.

I believe we may be at a point where it is understood that headlines are created with the goal of attracting readers to the article, and it may no longer be necessary to point this out for each article we come across.

There's a difference between editorializing a headline vs having an article titled "X is the best", where the content is literally "Well X obviously isn't the best, that would be ridiculous. Also we have no idea what the best is."

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#122

Post by wccrawford »

neogodless wrote: post #67
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #25

Click-Bait title, and judging by comments here everyone went for the click-bait. The author doesn't actually use factorio for interviewing, and thinks it world be a bad idea to do so. A more accurate title would be "Comparison between Factorio and Software Engineering Concepts" - but that wouldn't have gotten it to the top of HN so fast, nor gotten so many comments so quickly.

I believe we may be at a point where it is understood that headlines are created with the goal of attracting readers to the article, and it may no longer be necessary to point this out for each article we come across.

When the headline is so obviously clickbait, it's probably more interesting than the actual article... And the comments here are likely more interesting as well, just based on the title.

So I no longer worry about people who haven't read the article. I just enjoy the discussions.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#123

Post by novok »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

This is the reason why I don’t like playing factorio. I’d rather make real software and get paid or build something usable vs a game version of it. I spend a lot of time already doing it as my job, and it stresses me out in a similar way.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#124

Post by tomc1985 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #109
tomc1985 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can refactor... you can clear away everything and you get back 100% of materials

Demolishing your base and building a new one is not anything like refactoring.

Why not? You clear out the part you don't like, and build anew

No, code refactoring does not fit perfectly in this analogy. And your ability to do so is somewhat dependent on how you build. But I think all those factors are simply part of the puzzle in refactoring a factory

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#125

Post by jontas »

I am a senior engineer and have been programming for close to two decades. I picked up Factorio a few months ago and felt overwhelmed. I couldn't finish the tutorial. I think my problem is spatial relations--it is something I've always struggled with (how to arrange furniture in a room, solve a jigsaw, etc).

I don't think this is a detriment to my programming ability at all--spatial relations really never enters into architecting a large system. Of course you need to think about design constraints but none of them exist on a physical plane.

Factorio, on the other hand, requires actual spatial relation ability. You need to visualize how belts intersect and how to best position things so they dont interfere with each other. This is where I struggled.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#126

Post by markus_zhang »

jkingsbery wrote: post #115
markus_zhang wrote: post #108

For anyone interested in Factorio as well as the technical notes of optimization. I highly recommend another game: Daison Sphere Program. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1366540/Dyson_Sphere_Prog... The leading programmer uses some sophisticated ways of optimization, including: - DOP instead of OOP - Leveraging GPU for parellely calculating certain stuffs - Using a GTX 660 Ti for development Here is a technical po…

Dyson Sphere Program is so good. I haven't played Factorio yet, but I think it has all the same sorts of things that this article described. When I started playing DSP at first, I was just putting stuff anywhere. Then I realized that there are advantages in trying to make things modular in a way roughly analogous with code. At the same time though, it is very different than code, as the design is spacial, not as abst…

Yeah exactly, those games really bring out the "programmer" mindset out of everyone :D

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#127

Post by zinclozenge »

colpabar wrote: post #74
lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Now check out Dyson Sphere Program, it's like those games but in space ;)

I just got it recently and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#128

Post by nthj »

novok wrote: post #123
lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

This is the reason why I don’t like playing factorio. I’d rather make real software and get paid or build something usable vs a game version of it. I spend a lot of time already doing it as my job, and it stresses me out in a similar way.

I like factorio because I don't have to have 17 meetings to get alignment on changing 3 lines of code. "I objectively need more electricity, so I will refactor the nuclear reactor" is the only agreement needed

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#129

Post by novok »

plank_time wrote: post #73
kentonv wrote: post #58

We used this a couple times at Sandstorm back in the day. At the end of the interview the candidate would play Factorio cooperatively with the team for a while. I think it is remarkably effective at identifying the kinds of skills and personality traits that a software engineer actually needs to have in day-to-day work. You can find out if someone is self-directed, how fast they work, whether they produce clean desig…

Hire quickly and fire quickly with a generous severance. That’s the only method that I’ve seen works effectively. Netflix does more with 2000 engineers that companies with 10-20x that. This also lets you take chances on engineers that weren’t “perfect” but had a lot of positives to offer.

That has major issues with immigrants, who wont apply in a fire quickly scenario.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#130

Post by wideareanetwork »

jontas wrote: post #125

I am a senior engineer and have been programming for close to two decades. I picked up Factorio a few months ago and felt overwhelmed. I couldn't finish the tutorial. I think my problem is spatial relations--it is something I've always struggled with (how to arrange furniture in a room, solve a jigsaw, etc). I don't think this is a detriment to my programming ability at all--spatial relations really never enters into…

Well according to the thesis put forward here you aren’t a developer they’d want to employ .

As a job seeker you need to identify these companies fast so you can avoid wasting your time on them.

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