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“This project will only take 2 hours”

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Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#241

Post by sverhagen »

htrp wrote: post #233
sverhagen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I've interviewed using homework like this, it was with the sole purpose of bringing it along and talking to it. That won't be gamed. And, by the way, that lends itself also very well for bringing whatever fitted in the time box, and having a discussion on the meeting about the tasks that remain, and about their prioritization process. You may like it when you see less production code, in favor of some tests! Peo…

This is the right approach. You don't disqualify based on the take home (unless it doesn't work at all).

Unless it's a nonsense solution maybe, or you clearly demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about. But otherwise it not quite working isn't even the greatest obstacle. (Though those tests working would be nice...)

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#242

Post by vmception »

real-dino wrote: post #181
ThalesX wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's why I wasn't a good fit for a recent company I interviewed with using a take-home assignment... bear in mind it's been at least a decade since I last took a take-home, so things might have changed. I received the task on Friday evening, I spent the week-end thinking about the problem. Monday I had actual work and on Tuesday, I spent a day coming up with a shit implementation. Then, I started improv…

You have to lie about take-home assignments. That is the accepted way. I had a take home test that was to last 2 hours, and so I promised myself I would spend no longer on it. I provided a complete log of what I did minute by minute for a take home test for the last test I did as a defensive measure... There was no break, no pondering, this was flat out knowing exactly what needed to be done and just typing constantl…

The folly is that if you did upload to github, they would have wanted to see steady commit history as well, which would have given away how much time you actually worked on it.

The key is lying because you already had a similar code base to use, most likely from interviewing so much you'd seen it before.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#243

Post by dwheeler »

This just highlights difference between a student project proof-of-concept and a product... and thus, you need to know what kind of software you're developing.

Monitoring the clipboard periodically, determining if there's a URL, and recording it somewhere if it is - that's easy. If it's a student project to show that something can be done, then you are DONE.

If it's a tool that you hope others will actually use, then yes, you need more.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#244

Post by logfromblammo »

Jensson wrote: post #9

> A few students came to me asking if I had any ideas for a software project that they could work on outside of class. > I explained an idea for a utility that I had been wanting: A desktop program that monitors my clipboard for URLs and logs them automatically. I think this person misunderstood the students, the student wanted a project to practice programming, not a project to practice project management. The progr…

The minimum viable product would take 2h-4h. A professor shouldn't be teaching students to prematurely optimize or to gold-plate their first effort.

Deliver version 1 before starting version 2.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#245

Post by barnabee »

DeathArrow wrote: post #49
wvenable wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone can write a rough command line tool that monitors the clipboard and prints to stdout. There's a good chance that this will solve 95% of all needs. Most of the features suggested in the article beyond the original premise are unnecessary.

>There's a good chance that this will solve 95% of all needs. Most of the features suggested in the article beyond the original premise are unnecessary. The teacher is the client. The client is the one who will better estimate what is necessary or not. If you own a company and someone wants to contract you for work, you start explaining how what the client says it needs is not necessary and how he can manage with les…

Studying Computer Science is about learning to program (among other things), not learning what it’s like to have clients.

I’d have been incredibly disappointed to have a teacher like that.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#246

Post by nerdponx »

donkeyd wrote: post #216
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good developers, yes. Which takes experience, given the myriad of colorful personalities, politics and more. Though I don't think it is fair the responsibility is largely put on the developer for "underestimating" when often the corporate is big enough to have specific people gather these requirements and map them out as part of their day-to-day. That's my main problem with this advice and the article. Of course anyo…

Half the time the devs don't even underestimate, it's just that they're the easiest to blame them because it'll never hurt them (according to the people shifting the blame). One time, I had to estimate a UI migration. I made the estimate and added the disclaimer that the estimation assumed X was true and Y and Z were provided. Of course, X wasn't true, because the supplier sucked and Y and Z weren't provided by the b…

It's even worse when you get pressured into giving unrealistic estimates, or even get overruled and have your estimate ignored, and then get blamed when the project runs over the estimated time.

If that ever happens to you, don't wait around and suffer. Start looking for another job and save your sanity.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#247

Post by derefr »

da_chicken wrote: post #236
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #72

I've gone down this rabbitole before, and yes, there are things that take two hours, and there are things that take a lot more. The problem is the scope - ie. are you trying to do what you said you'll do (miniature software to log urls), or are you adding 100s of requirements to the scope (gui, filters, privacy,...). We had a bunch of .xml files containing some data, and someone wanted a .csv file... sure, an hour ma…

See, I read the article's problem description and think, "Okay, a proof of concept is going to take 2-4 hours. A shippable product is probably going to take 5 to 10 times that long." IMX, it's not even necessarily feature creep. It's failure to stop and adequately understand what constitutes a minimum viable product . Not viable to sell on the marketplace. Merely viable to deliver to another user . There's a huge mis…

With scripting, often you don't have to deliver it to another user; you just have to get the data from them, run your script on it, and give them back the result. It only has to work on your machine, because that's the only place it'll ever be run, and only once.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#248

Post by nerdponx »

real-dino wrote: post #181
ThalesX wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's why I wasn't a good fit for a recent company I interviewed with using a take-home assignment... bear in mind it's been at least a decade since I last took a take-home, so things might have changed. I received the task on Friday evening, I spent the week-end thinking about the problem. Monday I had actual work and on Tuesday, I spent a day coming up with a shit implementation. Then, I started improv…

You have to lie about take-home assignments. That is the accepted way. I had a take home test that was to last 2 hours, and so I promised myself I would spend no longer on it. I provided a complete log of what I did minute by minute for a take home test for the last test I did as a defensive measure... There was no break, no pondering, this was flat out knowing exactly what needed to be done and just typing constantl…

I've probably burned some bridges this way, but whenever this has happened to me I've sent strongly worded messages to the recruiter and hiring manager. It probably goes nowhere, but I think it's time that we as an industry stop putting up with this shit.

It's also a great indication that it's not a company you want to work for anyway, but I don't have the stomach for accepting this level of disrespect towards applicants.

The only people who benefit from this situation are the people who have the luxury and freedom of 20 hours to spend on take-home projects. And even when I was that person once, I still hated it.

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#249

Post by derefr »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #153
jiggawatts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely remember a rant some famous Linux developer went on about how setting up printing in Linux requires a dozen parameters, half of which are arcane nonsense that the printer manufacturer themselves probably doesn't know how to set up correctly. Meanwhile, on an Apple or Windows computer it can be literally just plug and print. The difference is that hiding those arcane input parameters takes work , and a lot o…

Printers are plug and play on Windows? That's not my experience. I have constant problems at work. Settings resetting, stupid printer driver GUIs nagging about ink, prints coming out wrong and making me go into the detailed settings to fix it. Rare are the days where I can just print the stuff I need with no fuss. I'm fortunate enough to be able to solve problems on my own. Coworkers are forced to call support and wa…

Printers are plug-and-play on Windows, macOS, and especially iOS (AirPrint) if 1. you're always printing PDFs at 100% scale, single-sided, black-and-white, and 2. you're printing against a printer where that particular configuration is its wheelhouse (i.e. a laser printer.)

Re: “This project will only take 2 hours”

#250

Post by wvenable »

DeathArrow wrote: post #49
wvenable wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone can write a rough command line tool that monitors the clipboard and prints to stdout. There's a good chance that this will solve 95% of all needs. Most of the features suggested in the article beyond the original premise are unnecessary.

>There's a good chance that this will solve 95% of all needs. Most of the features suggested in the article beyond the original premise are unnecessary. The teacher is the client. The client is the one who will better estimate what is necessary or not. If you own a company and someone wants to contract you for work, you start explaining how what the client says it needs is not necessary and how he can manage with les…

Yes! If you blindly do what any client says, you will waste a lot of your time and a lot of their time.
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