Stephen Wolfram is probably happy today. It's a shame an awesome project like SymPy can be nuked by some bogus perjury-riddled spam notice just like this.
HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
211–220 of 348 posts
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#212Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085
Thanks for showing up here and replying. I can understand the net being cast too wide for a real problem you are trying to solve. It does have real consequences for already under-resourced communities, though. I appreciate the "fix-it-twice" attitude implied by the RCA promise (Root Cause Analysis for those who also had to look it up). Also, consider recognition and restitution for the unnecessary work you created fo…
Great way to get $25k (and I'm with you, I don't mean that sarcastically or that you don't deserve it), the company needs to pay up to manage somewhat their reputation.
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it is a horrifically flawed metric by which to hire engineers, and is teaching upcoming crops of engineers valueless skills to enter the industry
As someone who (last week) ok'ed a guy with 35 years experience to skip the first round of interviews, only to then watch him struggle to write syntactically-correct code in a language he's (allegedly) been using for longer than I've been alive, I disagree. HR isn't a be-all-end-all metric, and it certainly has its faults, but it's very useful as a first-round filter.
If you're just using HackerRank as a first round filter to see if they can write syntactically-correct code in a language... you don't need hackerRank. Or to restate this, if your interview process can't filter out such a candidate without using hackerRank, your interview process itself is flawed.
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it is a horrifically flawed metric by which to hire engineers, and is teaching upcoming crops of engineers valueless skills to enter the industry
I disagree. Kind of. There are many questions that are bullshit puzzle types but I do think HR and LC provides value of teaching when a Data Structure or algorithm is suitable for use. At the very least, It’s far better means of understanding the flexible use that college textbooks don’t teach while having test cases to see pitfalls of implementations. Having a community that shows ingenious ways of tackling problems…
I agree that a good interview process should check that the applicants have their bases covered with algorithms and data structures. I agree that having a compendium of good questions to ask for this purpose is useful. And I agree that HackerRank and LC have compendiums of such questions.
However, I disagree that that makes HR or LC valuable or a positive in the interview process. Basic DS and Algo questions do not require the types, number, or complicated questions one finds in HR or LC. Such questions are easy to come up with and test, and should be a notable, but minor part of the interview process.
HR and LC take what should be a minor (though important!) part of the interview process, and blow them to huge proportions, and thereby distort and harm the very process they're supposed to be helping. They do this, in an attempt to present themselves as having a larger value add than they actually do.
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it is a horrifically flawed metric by which to hire engineers, and is teaching upcoming crops of engineers valueless skills to enter the industry
As someone who (last week) ok'ed a guy with 35 years experience to skip the first round of interviews, only to then watch him struggle to write syntactically-correct code in a language he's (allegedly) been using for longer than I've been alive, I disagree. HR isn't a be-all-end-all metric, and it certainly has its faults, but it's very useful as a first-round filter.
This is a false dilemma.
The point is to find another evaluation metric.
Did you give your guy an IDE that he would normally use? That your company normally uses? A real world problem to solve? Resources he would normally use? Resources people at your company use on a day to day basis?
White boarding or using codepen isnt remotely close to evaluation for the actual job, and neither are data structure brainteasers, curious what you and your candidate did.
You got one false positive and now want to use a system known for its false negatives.
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
One way for HackerRank to do the right thing would be to sue WorthIT for breach of contract and loss of reputation. Their contract must have included some requirements for due diligence on filing those notices, and having these bogus DMCA notices does hurt HackerRank’s reputation, especially with its target audience. Only way to make this stop is make companies like WorthIT feel financial pain from their actions.
There's also an argument to be made that this is on HackerRank. Just because they're using a contractor to do the dirty work doesn't excuse them from responsibility for this sloppiness.
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Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#217Ah, HackerRank. A major contributor to the shitshow that is present day software engineering interview processes.
Is it really though? I thought the algorithms hiring process was popularized by google way before hacker rank was a company. As mentioned in a thread above, hacker rank and leetcode have made a major question bank available, but I don't think they started it. For that the blame lies elsewhere :)
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#218Hello again, Vivek, founder/CEO here. In the interest of moving swiftly, here are the actions we are going to take: (1) We have withdrawn the DMCA notice for sympy; Sent a note to senior leadership in Github to act on this quickly. (2) We have stopped the whole DMCA process for now and working on internal guidelines of what constitutes a real violation so that these kind of incidents don't happen. We are going to do…
>"As a company we take a lot of pride in helping developers and it sucks to see this."
I don't understand this because as others on this thread have pointed out you have done this before.
Further isn't much of your own content just plagiarized from other people's previous FAANG interviews?
I've never used HackerRank as I view it as something of scourge on the industry but I will probably go to extra effort and recommend to other that they not use it either.
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
It is fucking happening.
Now that you've been called out publicly...
What are you doing about all the other bogus DMCA claims you company has sent (itself or via its external contractors)?
What are you doing to ensure this never happens again?
Why should we believe your answers, and how can we see concrete evidence that you've stopped doing this and made up for all the times you've done it in that past?
Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]
#220[deleted]