Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One month command line challenge

blog.expertinamonth.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: One month command line challenge

#11

Post by pyre »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7

>Many candidates will immediately start writing a program in Java or Python, if they get it right, then they will start optimizing the algorithm > and in most cases programmers who are comfortable with the command line version are also the ones who are better at writing code These two statements indicate to me that you are ineffective at communicating what skills you are looking for in a programmer. The reason they a…

Came here to say exactly this. When someone asks you to "transform this data" in a programming interview, then you assume it's to test your programming skills, so you start to showcase them.

The question also doesn't talk about platform. Windows doesn't have the GNU suite (or BSD for that matter) by default. On the other hand, if we start programming in a language, there is at least the assumption that the language is installed and configured on said system.

Re: One month command line challenge

#12

Post by winash »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7

>Many candidates will immediately start writing a program in Java or Python, if they get it right, then they will start optimizing the algorithm > and in most cases programmers who are comfortable with the command line version are also the ones who are better at writing code These two statements indicate to me that you are ineffective at communicating what skills you are looking for in a programmer. The reason they a…

Hi OP here, I am sorry! I should have added more context to the post. I have never rejected candidates solely on this basis.

Its just that I appreciate programmers who think of simpler solutions first.

Re: One month command line challenge

#13

Post by gingerlime »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7

>Many candidates will immediately start writing a program in Java or Python, if they get it right, then they will start optimizing the algorithm > and in most cases programmers who are comfortable with the command line version are also the ones who are better at writing code These two statements indicate to me that you are ineffective at communicating what skills you are looking for in a programmer. The reason they a…

You definitely have a point, but parts of the expectations from candidates at an interview is to ask questions about the problem domain, the available solution space etc.

So in this case, I think if a candidate then asks something like "Are you expecting a solution in code, or can I use command line tools like grep, sort etc?" it shows something about them.

Re: One month command line challenge

#14

Post by fitzwatermellow »

Once, Ubuntu Desktop issued an update that hosed my fglxr drivers.

I needed to get some work done on a remote machine. I didn't have time to download and re-install graphics drivers so I just soldiered. GNU Screen, elinks, vim, ssh, rsync, irssi, et al. I was amazed how much distraction free actual programming I could do. On an aesthetic full-screen bash console, no less. Was even have tempted to setup Gmail in pine.

Until I needed a browser to test a layout. Finally, I had reached the limits of CLI. Believing I could merely surf to amd.com, download the appropriate tarball (linux x64 supported), unpack install reboot and rejoin modern civ.

Fired up elinks, went to amd.com and was properly re-buffed. There was a javascript "system detection" routine that could not be bypassed to navigate directly to the download urls!

In the end, apt saved the day. Moral of the story: always test your http works in elinks, please ;)

Re: One month command line challenge

#15

Post by winash »

fndrplayer13 wrote: post #6

I'm not sure how I feel about the sort question being a super simple "fizzbuzz" type command line question in an interview. The problem with some of the CLI stuff is that its really a simple yes/no "do you remember that command name" type thing. For something like grep that makes sense. But as somebody who also lives in the terminal, I have mixed feelings about expecting things like wc, sort, xargs, etc out of a pote…

Exactly my point, as I said before I have never rejected candidates based on whether they can answer the question, but it does add a point for those who can.

Re: One month command line challenge

#16

Post by markbnj »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7

>Many candidates will immediately start writing a program in Java or Python, if they get it right, then they will start optimizing the algorithm > and in most cases programmers who are comfortable with the command line version are also the ones who are better at writing code These two statements indicate to me that you are ineffective at communicating what skills you are looking for in a programmer. The reason they a…

Heh, I got rejected once, a long time ago, for almost exactly this. I was asked to whiteboard a C function to convert an ascii character to an integer, and I wrote one that just returned the result of atoi(). I thought it showed knowledge of the best way to get the job done, but I guess they disagreed.

Re: One month command line challenge

#17

Post by falcolas »

readme wrote: post #9
munin wrote: post #3

but that isn't the command line, that's unix... windows has its own sort utility but the flags are different... also contrast the submission with this post: http://pgbovine.net/command-line-bullshittery.htm

I read the post you linked and I disagree with it because familiarity with the *nix command line is very useful for a developer working in industry. This guy sees it as a roadblock because he believes that the complicated nature of it will turn students away who would otherwise be good computer science researchers. This could be true. In any event, the post linked here seems aimed at people who want quick vocational…

> familiarity with the nix command line is very useful for a developer working in industry.

Depends on the industry. Familiarity with the command line for a Java developer is hardly required. Familiarity with the nix command line for a C# developer is utterly useless. Ditto that for video game developers.

On the other hand, if you're writing for linux, then yes, knowing the *nix command line is going to be incredibly useful. That said, there's a lot to "know" - it is its own programming language after all. How much familiarity do you want them to have, and what tradeoffs are you willing to assume if they have that familiarity?

Re: One month command line challenge

#18

Post by falcolas »

sumitviii wrote: post #5

> After one month, you will be surprised at how inferior and cumbersome the graphical interface seems compared to the command line. Maybe because one does not need to change the way he/she is interacting with machine?

Depends on your goals. If you're ever asked to debug a problem on a remote Linux machine with no X, you'll be lost if all you know is the GUI.

Even if you never have to step outside of Windows, you might still benefit from learning Powershell, simply because it allows for a surprising amount of automation of routine workflows.

Re: One month command line challenge

#19

Post by implicit »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #7

>Many candidates will immediately start writing a program in Java or Python, if they get it right, then they will start optimizing the algorithm > and in most cases programmers who are comfortable with the command line version are also the ones who are better at writing code These two statements indicate to me that you are ineffective at communicating what skills you are looking for in a programmer. The reason they a…

This should be a perfectly fine answer and any interviewer who knows what they're doing should be prepared to roll with it. (by, for instance, pointing at the Sort() function and asking how it works)

The goal is never to see if a candidate can produce a specific program, but to watch them reason and explain that reasoning.

Post reply on HN