The best programmers are the quickest to Google • Hacker News Board

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#131

Post by eldude » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:03 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #49

This is something that bugs me about whiteboard-style interviews - they test almost none of the typical day-to-day aspects of programming. Without Google, without docs, without a REPL, without the code-run-debug cycle, how is it that you think you're assessing how effective I am in real life ? EDIT: not to mention that you're also not testing me for one of the most important abilities of a coder in a software shop: h…

One of the most effective coding interviews I ever had involved giving bringing in my own laptop and mirroring it on an external monitor. I was asked typical "whiteboard" questions, but I was able to program in the style I've grown accustomed. This accomplished both the typical negative-filter (fizzbuzz) as well as enabling me to build something higher level and more complex than typically posssible during a 1hr interview.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#132

Post by rcxdude » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

codex wrote: post #23

hnwh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suffer from a cross disciplinary illness, in which very few doctors have experience (because it doesn't fit into one of the major well defined specialties). You can't imagine how happy it makes me when a doctor tells me "I have to go look that up", as opposed to.. no.. there's nothing to worry about, you're just imagining that, or whatever

Absolutely. Doctors are particularly egoistic and don't deal well with long-tail problems. But that doesn't make yours the best doctor; the best doctor wrote the original material. Willingness to research the answer just makes your doctor an effective doctor, because they ultimately deliver the correct answer.

No single doctor wrote the original material. The doctor who wrote the original material for one area may be completely useless outside his area and ineffective at looking them up.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#133

Post by madisp » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

zv wrote: post #76

JohnBooty wrote: post #15

I couldn't help but read this and think about technical interviews that involve the candidate being asked to write code on a whiteboard - no Google, no code linting/hinting/completion etc. I'm very much in favor of candidates being asked to write some code under more realistic conditions, including finding solutions to parts of the exercise online. Of course, they should then be able to explain to the interviewer(s)…

While this may be good for code under 100 lines, anything more requires using Google. Either it be simple trivial things like email regexp (for those who don't have the luxury of having premade libraries for them) or harder things like algorithms.

I have yet to see a good email regexp while using Google. Most of them have huge troubles - either not having proper Unicode support (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Internationalizat...) or not allowing the +label thing that Google is doing for instance. If you want to validate an email, make sure that there is an '@' character in there followed by some chars and a '.' with some other chars at the beginning and the end :)

If you really really want to validate an email then force the user to verify it.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#134

Post by joesb » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #124

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give a non-programming example. It took me the best part of the weekend to drill twelve holes for curtains - because it is not enough to Google for the answers. Now, if you knock on a wall and it sounds hollow - you just google for hollow wall fixings. Great. I'll go buy some of those. Drill into the wall. And hit brick behind the plaster. Err... Ok they have invented a new type - dry lined Walls. The gap is s…

> 3. Hire a professional while you go and do revenue generating work. Nothing wrong with acquiring a new skill. And next time you know how to do it.

YAGNI. There's nothing wrong with not acquiring new skill either. It depends on how soon/often you will need to use the skill in the future. Also on how urgent you need to do it if the need arises.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#135

Post by rapind » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:21 PM UTC

"the collaborative efforts of an open source project will beat whatever you can do in 8 hrs" is often untrue.

You need to have the ability to read and understand at least part of the code to make sure said project doesn't have fundamental flaws or sub-par code.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#136

Post by bigiain » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #121

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give a non-programming example. It took me the best part of the weekend to drill twelve holes for curtains - because it is not enough to Google for the answers. Now, if you knock on a wall and it sounds hollow - you just google for hollow wall fixings. Great. I'll go buy some of those. Drill into the wall. And hit brick behind the plaster. Err... Ok they have invented a new type - dry lined Walls. The gap is s…

I cannot upvote you enough - especially on the first point. All the googling in the world is worthless without knowing what to Google for . The "trick" of expert[^1] programmers is to know the difference, and to slowly expand the base they can build on. [^1] An expert is merely a person who has learnt from more mistakes. There's nothing magical about it, as much as the cult of the rock star programmer would have us b…

And this is the unstated meta problem implied (but usually ignored) in that Einstein quote.

Sure, you don't need to remember anything you can look up in a book (or Google), but you do need to know how to get to the right book again.

Beginners aren't characterised by not knowing how to type queries into Google's search box, it's that they don't know _what_ to type. Being an expert isn't about being able to solve problems without outside knowledge, but it is very much about having enough awareness of a large body of outside knowledge that you've got the right terminology in your head to know what words to start typing into that search box. A beginner trying to format a number as currency is going to spend a lot more time looking than the programmer who knows they just need to type "perldoc -f sprintf" at the command line.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#137

Post by Goladus » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

The flip side of this is that deep understanding of fundamentals helps dramatically when it comes to asking the right questions and filtering results.

In my experience, google is often secondary to first-class reference materials (language documentation, man pages, etc.)

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#138

Post by kisielk » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

joesb wrote: post #134

jacquesm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Hire a professional while you go and do revenue generating work. Nothing wrong with acquiring a new skill. And next time you know how to do it.

YAGNI. There's nothing wrong with not acquiring new skill either. It depends on how soon/often you will need to use the skill in the future. Also on how urgent you need to do it if the need arises.

The trick is having enough skill to be able to evaluate the professional you're going to hire. I've been bitten by this before both in my personal and professional life. If you don't know enough about the field even someone with only a marginal amount of knowledge about the topic can seem like an expert.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#139

Post by taylorbuley » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 9:50 PM UTC

The platitude sounds like something I can get behind but it's so much more than knowing how to search -- it's knowing where to search. I know programmers who are great at searching but have no idea which online information sources to avoid, which is at least half the battle.

In a world of copy/paste programmers, bad code gets worse as it's regurgitated around the web.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#140

Post by 6ren » Mon, Feb 25, 2013, 10:00 PM UTC

Is a great memory a requirement for great programming? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/572620/is-a-great-memory-...

Alan Kay: in programming there is a wide-spread 1st order theory that one shouldn't build one's own tools, languages, and especially operating systems. This is true—an incredible amount of time and energy has gone down these ratholes. On the 2nd hand, if you can build your own tools, languages and operating systems, then you absolutely should because the leverage that can be obtained (and often the time not wasted in trying to fix other people's not quite right tools) can be incredible. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m...