41–50 of 157 posts
It’s come full circle. I’ve often heard people (working developers) say over the years that software engineers are basically just digital plumbers. And the job often feels that way. Now we have proof that the skills do in fact overlap quite a bit with plumbing.
"Until I met Daniel, I actually didn't know that "smoke testing" was a term with a literal smoke-related meaning. I'd always heard it used in the context of software tests. Daniel used a tracing technique to follow a problem to its source, instead of just making random guesses." I've always known "smoke testing" to refer to the mythical magic smoke that makes all electronics work. Smoke testing is turning something o…
Tangential-ish: I used to live in a place where we had gas resources and gas stoves. Gas pipes would be painted yellow to stand out and people always had some sort of respect and caution around them - you don't mess with gas pipes - I learned that as a kid. At the slightest whif of gas people would light up a match or a lighter and run it along the pipe to check for leaks - I always thought this is what "smoke testin…
Interviewer - "That's impressive Daniel. Now can you invert a binary tree on the whiteboard?"
Inverting a binary tree is not hard. That people keep using this as a joke is more a testament to the stubbornness of people believing they shouldn't have to do no learnin' no more than it is bad interviewing practices.
"Until I met Daniel, I actually didn't know that "smoke testing" was a term with a literal smoke-related meaning. I'd always heard it used in the context of software tests. Daniel used a tracing technique to follow a problem to its source, instead of just making random guesses." I've always known "smoke testing" to refer to the mythical magic smoke that makes all electronics work. Smoke testing is turning something o…
Tangential-ish: I used to live in a place where we had gas resources and gas stoves. Gas pipes would be painted yellow to stand out and people always had some sort of respect and caution around them - you don't mess with gas pipes - I learned that as a kid. At the slightest whif of gas people would light up a match or a lighter and run it along the pipe to check for leaks - I always thought this is what "smoke testin…
Interviewer - "That's impressive Daniel. Now can you invert a binary tree on the whiteboard?"
If you literally know what questions are being asked in a test, you should probably fucking just learn it an move on.
I might be biased as I belong to that group, but I have met some fantastic people from that group.
"Until I met Daniel, I actually didn't know that "smoke testing" was a term with a literal smoke-related meaning. I'd always heard it used in the context of software tests. Daniel used a tracing technique to follow a problem to its source, instead of just making random guesses." I've always known "smoke testing" to refer to the mythical magic smoke that makes all electronics work. Smoke testing is turning something o…
This- I knew the electrical sense that early software engineers working on hobby computers probably got it from, where it refers to wiring something up, plugging it in for the first time and seeing if it lights on fire / creates smoke. I guess there is a dual origin though https://medium.com/@AikoPath/about-the-origin-of-smoke-testi...
[0] I have a terrible memory so details may be incorrect.
[1] IIRC this guy had worked on geostar satellites and the hubble, but I'm not sure if this story was about either.
Interviewer - "That's impressive Daniel. Now can you invert a binary tree on the whiteboard?"
The amount of time people spend complaining about solving trivial problems would be better spent studying for those problems in the first place. If you literally know what questions are being asked in a test, you should probably fucking just learn it an move on.
So... smart and gets things done. Honestly that's all I look for on a resume. You also have to talk about it in an interview. I couldn't care less if you can invert a binary tree. One of the greatest developers I've ever worked with, I hired straight out of college. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree but his senior year he took a course in Java and liked it and decided to be a programmer. Couldn't tel…
Or, just imagine that you're interviewing a hypothetically equivalent candidate who also had the same drive and "chops to figure things out", but who happened to be less fluent in conversational English. Are you so sure that you'd be able to pick up on the same underlying "signal" about their chops, if it was obscured by some language fluency noise?
Hiring is a Hard Problem, and there's a big gap between well-intentioned intuition and translating that into robust processes.