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Announcing Starfighter

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Re: Announcing Starfighter

#361

Post by areyousure »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #358
Pyxl101 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a neat idea, but ultimately, worrying about cheating or whether someone has cheated feels like a distraction. It suggests a test that isn't repeatable. I'm only confident in my ability to detect obvious plagiarism. Subtle plagiarism can exist in varying forms, such as reading an analysis of the problem and solutions. Some people who plagiarize will pass a thorough Q&A about their code, because they fully underst…

> Some people who plagiarize will pass a thorough Q&A about their code, because they fully understood the explanation of the solution, but are getting an unfair advantage over candidates who worked out a solution themselves from scratch. This reminds me of the debate over whether performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in mathematics. Why do you think it's so important for the candidate to personally invent eve…

At Princeton university, faculty members are not allowed to proctor in-class exams. (See the top of page 2 of https://registrar.princeton.edu/faculty-services/Conduct_of_... for a reference.)

Do you feel similarly that the implicit goal of this model is "to make sure they'll comply with arbitrary, unenforceable demands" and still not to test internalization of the material?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#362

Post by thaumasiotes »

areyousure wrote: post #361
thaumasiotes wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people who plagiarize will pass a thorough Q&A about their code, because they fully understood the explanation of the solution, but are getting an unfair advantage over candidates who worked out a solution themselves from scratch. This reminds me of the debate over whether performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in mathematics. Why do you think it's so important for the candidate to personally invent eve…

At Princeton university, faculty members are not allowed to proctor in-class exams. (See the top of page 2 of https://registrar.princeton.edu/faculty-services/Conduct_of_... for a reference.) Do you feel similarly that the implicit goal of this model is "to make sure they'll comply with arbitrary, unenforceable demands" and still not to test internalization of the material?

This is to my (1) as my (2) is to my (3). The applicable standard is even called "the Honor Code". I don't see why you think I'll see a difference. It's quite clear that making sure (or emphasizing that) the students are The Right Sort Of People is an explicit goal of the Princeton policy; see the final sentence of the relevant section of the document you linked. ("STUDENTS MUST WRITE AND SIGN THE HONOR PLEDGE IN FULL ON THE COMPLETED EXAMINATION PAPERS", caps original.)

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#363

Post by fsniper »

tptacek wrote: post #355
fsniper wrote: post #140

This whole interview process is broken. Even with this mind of ctf game, one should not be expected to race through peers with different kinds of tools. Developers are expected to build resumes at work via daily routines, then at home via github, hackerrank, side projects. System administrators are expected to do daily system administration routine, know OSes, tools, cloud/iaas/paas providers inside out and code side…

What race/competition dynamics we are going to have are for the benefit of the participants. Microcorruption has been running for over a year; the first finisher finished a few days after we released it. I'd have paid very close attention to someone who finished Microcorruption yesterday, if I was still hiring for Matasano.

I understand what you are trying to do, but that's another competition in the roots. We already have too many.

GitHub, BitBucket, HackerRank, TrueAbility, Certifications, Education, Jobs. It's becoming of a norm that if someone puts more personal time to show off, they are better engineers. Also that's another wrong position in IT. You can not have personal life. I do not want to be a marketeer, I'm an engineer.

If you ever ask any of us around here, perhaps most will tell you a scary story about the competition and the time constraints the competition brings on people.

Eventually with every racing/gaming/ranking tool out there it's becoming to be harder to get a good position in IT without investing in more and more personal time.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#364

Post by kylebrown »

shubhamjain wrote: post #330
woah wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that cheating on this would be unethical. Programming is about getting things done. As a hiring metric, nothing can beat open source. The open source portfolio really is kind of a golden standard. It is real work that you have done, that has (hopefully) advanced the commons, because you love programming and have something unique to add to the world. Some fake video game programming may indicate something…

I think it is wrong to except everyone to contribute to open-source and I have seen that even the very smart programmers are not interested in making personal projects or contributing to existing ones. Honestly, after mind-taxing eight hour job, you want to go home, watch a movie, read a book or some other relaxing activity. Not to mention that for people with families, it is nearly impossible to find the time to con…

> Honestly, after mind-taxing eight hour job, you want to go home, watch a movie, read a book or some other relaxing activity.

Then this person probably wouldn't find much time to do CTF challenges, either.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#365

Post by kasey_junk »

fsniper wrote: post #363
tptacek wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What race/competition dynamics we are going to have are for the benefit of the participants. Microcorruption has been running for over a year; the first finisher finished a few days after we released it. I'd have paid very close attention to someone who finished Microcorruption yesterday, if I was still hiring for Matasano.

I understand what you are trying to do, but that's another competition in the roots. We already have too many. GitHub, BitBucket, HackerRank, TrueAbility, Certifications, Education, Jobs. It's becoming of a norm that if someone puts more personal time to show off, they are better engineers. Also that's another wrong position in IT. You can not have personal life. I do not want to be a marketeer, I'm an engineer. If y…

I suspect that the Starfighter crew's answer around this is twofold:

1) Of course there will always be other ways to get technical work. You needn't feel compelled to use their product unless you think the time input is worth the reward.

2) If they haven't made the process fun, that is something you want to spend your valuable free time on, they have failed (at least in acquiring you as a product).

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#366

Post by snarfy »

"You will use real technology. You will build real systems. You will face the real problems faced by the world’s best programmers building the world’s most important pieces of software. You will conquer those problems. You will prove yourself equal to the very best. Becoming a top Starfighter player is a direct path to receiving lucrative job offers from the best tech companies in the world, because you’ll have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can do the work these companies need done."

What an absolute waste of time. You can do all of those things as hobby projects which are yours and actually do something useful in the world besides exist as an achievement to be unlocked.

Show your future employer your github, not your starfighter score.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#367

Post by fsniper »

kasey_junk wrote: post #365
fsniper wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are trying to do, but that's another competition in the roots. We already have too many. GitHub, BitBucket, HackerRank, TrueAbility, Certifications, Education, Jobs. It's becoming of a norm that if someone puts more personal time to show off, they are better engineers. Also that's another wrong position in IT. You can not have personal life. I do not want to be a marketeer, I'm an engineer. If y…

I suspect that the Starfighter crew's answer around this is twofold: 1) Of course there will always be other ways to get technical work. You needn't feel compelled to use their product unless you think the time input is worth the reward. 2) If they haven't made the process fun , that is something you want to spend your valuable free time on, they have failed (at least in acquiring you as a product).

Perhaps you are right about the answer. But It is still another knot on the rope.

The next company expecting me do some obscure online automated coding test will need to pair me with an engineer inside.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#368

Post by kylebrown »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #283
tptacek wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could tell us how to apply data analysis to produce a concrete number that represents the merits and talents of a fellow human being, I would love to hear it; it would make my job a lot easier. I didn't know that was possible. Is this some kind of linear algebra-y machine learning sort of thing?

Most likely it is possible. Take this "Alex" you frequently speak highly of. If you gave Alex a different work sample test, do you believe he'd have done poorly on it? If not, then there is some common factor (call it H) both tests are measuring. (I can confidently state that you do believe he would have performed similarly on a different test - if he didn't, this whole idea would be fundamentally invalid.) Now the i…

IME, IQ tests (like other standardized tests, SAT's, GRE's etc) are easily gamed. I did a couple practice ones and my score jumped up by 20+ points the second time. Where is the evidence that it measures some hidden factor? Seems to me that (like other standardized tests) it simply measures the subject's level of training and preparation.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#369

Post by tom_b »

tptacek wrote: post #96
j2kun wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But you still hire more skilled people over less skilled people, and if free time contributes to skill it's not necessarily unfair. In fact, I think a quality CTF could level the playing field, since each candidate could be judged on their relative abilities (how far they can progress through a game that adapts to their prior knowledge). Moreover, one could offset the time commitment by paying candidates t…

That's definitely the ambition here, and it squares with our experience with the Crypto Challenges and Microcorruption: the "top tier" of people in both those events were, as a general rule, not very experienced in either of those problem domains.

Am I wrong to be completely stunned at this statement? Did experienced candidates just not participate in the Crypto Challenges and Microcorruption?

I would have expected at least some experienced candidates to drop into that "top tier" of people. What's up with this?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#370

Post by djb_hackernews »

I'm not sure how this solves the topcoder problem. That problem being is it attracts only certain kinds of software developers and while it is used as a recruiting tool it basically changes nothing when it comes to the interview and hiring process.

Even if you are recruited on topcoder you sometimes still need to submit your resume to some online resume eater "to get you in the system". And then you go on the same time wasting interviews as everyone else.

Personally, I don't play games of any sort but I like to write software and solve puzzles so I find topcoder SRMs more appealing than a programming game, but I'll definitely check it out.

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