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Announcing Starfighter

kalzumeus.com

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Re: Announcing Starfighter

#11

Post by ChargingWookie »

Awesome, I've been waiting for something like this

That being said, I've got a couple questions

Will all the CTFs be security focused?

One of the most common problems coursera ran into was people copying the assignments of other people. How do you intend to prevent copying for the CTFs? I see that you mentioned you're not going to DMCA tutorials or Let's Plays and instead track their every iteration on the code. I guess you can get rid of outright copying that way but I'd love to hear your other strategies.

Other than that this seems like a really interesting way to do recruiting. I can't wait to see the actual CTFs.

Also you've got a tiny typo in the WHY IS STARFIGHTER THE RIGHT TEAM FOR THIS? section: "I have a folder in Gmail saving messages from geeks who used by career advice or salary negotiation tips to their advantage." I think the by should be my

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#12

Post by tptacek »

davidw wrote: post #6

> We’re not here to fix the technical interview: we’re here to destroy it, and create something new and better in its place. That sounds pretty bold - some of us are kind of happy to go in and do an interview and talk about our experience and not spend a lot of time playing a game. I could see the game as more likely to work for people with lots of time and not as much experience or proficiency with the typical proce…

If the only reason you'd mess around with Starfighter is to get a job, we've done something wrong. This isn't one of those sites where you solve discrete programming puzzles for badges, or in lieu of a whiteboard interview.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#13

Post by blackRust »

tptacek wrote: post #2

I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…

Disclaimer: I have only skim read the article, so this is for my laziness and the benefit of all

Apart from the gameplay mechanism with code challenges, how is this better / different to HackerRank for a) "programmers" b) companies?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#14

Post by japesinator »

I’m curious as to how much this will select for people with free time. Many of the CTFs I’ve played in required a quite non-trivial amount of investment of time (which I didn’t mind, as they’ve been quite enjoyable), but there are certainly people who can’t afford n dozen hours to solve problems due to family/work/other obligations.

I do think this is significantly better than the alternative, but I’m also concerned that it will just create a new class of people who do unfairly poorly in the hiring process.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#20

Post by binarymax »

cheriot wrote: post #10

I wonder if the authors are fans of Stargate Universe. The show's premise involves a key character being identified by success on a puzzle embedded in a video game.

I presume it is based on the film "The Last Starfighter" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/ - in which a teen perfects an arcade game, and is then selected as a pilot for the actual spacecraft.
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