I am at the same time both amazed and utterly unsurprised that this was possible, given all the hullaballoo about TypeScript's type system being Turing complete. Having the grit to actually go through with it though? Bravo.
TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
191–200 of 391 posts
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
leetcode seems to agree with your definition [0]. the meme isn't to say that inverting a binary tree is particularly difficult - anyone familiar with coding challenges and trees could trivially produce a solution. the meme is more pointing out how ludicrous it is that senior/staff/principal interviews can hinge on these types of problems, despite the engineer proving their proficiency by doing something like running…
I think those challenges (especially leetcode) are heavily misused. When my team conducts technical interviews, we are asking for a couple simple programming solutions - but we're asking because we want to hear the candidate talk through it and see what their problem solving process is like. If you aren't evaluating based on conditions like those, I don't really see the value of coding questions.
> If you aren't evaluating based on conditions like those, I don't really see the value of coding questions.
The way I think about it, you're really trying to evaluate a candidate on about 10 different metrics all at once. Metrics like programming skill (writing & debugging), communication skills (listening and explaining), capacity to learn, domain knowledge (eg if you're hiring a react dev, do they know HTML & react?), likeability, and so on.
A good interview gives the candidate the chance to show their worth in all of those different areas. But time is limited - so you want some different challenges which will show many capabilities at once.
Asking a candidate to talk through how they'd solve a "leetcode problem" sort of does that - you can see their CS knowledge and their communication skills. But if thats all you ask, you end up overemphasising the candidate's CS knowledge. Most people aren't very good at thinking and talking at the same time. And you don't learn about other stuff. How good are they at debugging? At reading code? Do they have domain knowledge? Can they talk to clients? Are they good at design? Its also quite easy for the interviewer to be distracted by the question of whether or not the candidate solved the problem you gave them. - Which isn't really what anyone is there for.
As part of a larger interview, and especially for systems engineering roles, I think they're still fine questions to ask. But if thats the entire job interview, its a bad interview - because it won't let you evaluate a candidate properly. Especially in product roles where CS knowledge isn't very relevant anyway.
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well we haven't implemented a web browser capable of running javascript in the typescript type system yet. Quick, someone tell this author it's not possible.
I for one would like to see TypeScript's type inference be self-hosted
You're in luck! https://github.com/ronami/HypeScript
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
leetcode seems to agree with your definition [0]. the meme isn't to say that inverting a binary tree is particularly difficult - anyone familiar with coding challenges and trees could trivially produce a solution. the meme is more pointing out how ludicrous it is that senior/staff/principal interviews can hinge on these types of problems, despite the engineer proving their proficiency by doing something like running…
I think those challenges (especially leetcode) are heavily misused. When my team conducts technical interviews, we are asking for a couple simple programming solutions - but we're asking because we want to hear the candidate talk through it and see what their problem solving process is like. If you aren't evaluating based on conditions like those, I don't really see the value of coding questions.
This is absolutely the way. My interviews are conversations with someone that I want to work closely with, and while leet code might be an interesting lunch conversation it’s not going to be part of any of our day to day work (c/c++/swift/obj-c)
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
leetcode seems to agree with your definition [0]. the meme isn't to say that inverting a binary tree is particularly difficult - anyone familiar with coding challenges and trees could trivially produce a solution. the meme is more pointing out how ludicrous it is that senior/staff/principal interviews can hinge on these types of problems, despite the engineer proving their proficiency by doing something like running…
I think those challenges (especially leetcode) are heavily misused. When my team conducts technical interviews, we are asking for a couple simple programming solutions - but we're asking because we want to hear the candidate talk through it and see what their problem solving process is like. If you aren't evaluating based on conditions like those, I don't really see the value of coding questions.
I agree with this. I got to experience both sides when I interviewed at FB/Meta. I practiced the leetcode and Cracking the Code Interview stuff of course and one of my interviewers asked something like that. I guess it was insulting and pointless but whatever - I just did it.
Another interviewer asked a much more interesting question: you are writing an IM client. How do you build the client-server communication?
That was a great conversation I enjoyed on its own without regard for the interview. Asking questions: do we have online/offline status? (yes) What are the target devices? (mobile).
IIRC I said I'd want to optimize for bandwidth and latency. Cellular networks can be spotty at times and stall out in really annoying ways. I'd design the protocol to use an efficient encoding with a pre-shared dictionary (the list of friends doesn't change that much after all and lots of the same words/emoji are used frequently). I also said I'd make a flexible format that would let things like online/offline status or you have a new message from X ride along with an actual message in the current conversation and explore options like QUIC or other UDP-based eventually-consistent options given how a cellular dead band can put you in TCP retransmit jail for minutes at times.
For closure I was offered a position but went to a different company.
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do think shipping a product that has real users (and everything it entails, like writing the docs) is 100x more important than having leetcode and common interview tactics fresh on your mind. Without context, I suppose I can see the Homebrew guy's case possibly signaling a sort of hubris since it was just a fizzbuzzy-level question. In his defense, I would find it ridiculous if we just had a technical convo about h…
> I do think shipping a product that has real users (and everything it entails, like writing the docs) is 100x more important than having leetcode and common interview tactics fresh on your mind. It depends on the job! At a small product company, absolutely. Shipping useful features to customers is what you're hired to do. Hardcore CS knowledge is less useful than understanding how to talk to customers and shipping.…
Googles issue is a good part of their hiring is generic and the interviewers random
No one knows what your going to be working on
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
And we're also not driving race cars, we're the pit crew... So you kinda do want mechanics... Like, literally, we build and fix the thing you're selling. We do not USE the thing we're building by and large.
> We do not USE the thing we're building by and large. Yes, thankyou, that's quite obvious judging by the quality of most software. It really is amazing how bad most software made for non-developers is. Like, as software engineers, we understand how essential version control is. We made git and github for ourselves. But nobody has bothered building that functionality for people who edit word documents all day. Or peo…
> My partner works in a CMS all day at work. Every change she makes is pushed directly to production. There's no review process. No staging. No testing. No change control or rollback. If anyone messes something up, they get blamed for "taking down the app". As a software engineer, I look on in horror.
Fwiw that just sounds like an immature CMS - I've seen review/approval workflows, branches, preview environments etc in more than one CMS. I take your overall point but maybe your partner doesn't have to live this way.
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#198One of the top comments in the video: > If this guy goes for a big tech interview they're still going to ask him how to invert a binary tree The industry's hiring process is so messed up that this is completely believable. "We've decided to prioritize other candidates, as you are strong in the fundamentals but lack the kind of experience in Vue that we're looking for."
Why do you think person capable of making doom run in such an environment is incapable of basic tree operations?
Its a meme, Batman
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
And we're also not driving race cars, we're the pit crew... So you kinda do want mechanics... Like, literally, we build and fix the thing you're selling. We do not USE the thing we're building by and large.
> We do not USE the thing we're building by and large. Yes, thankyou, that's quite obvious judging by the quality of most software. It really is amazing how bad most software made for non-developers is. Like, as software engineers, we understand how essential version control is. We made git and github for ourselves. But nobody has bothered building that functionality for people who edit word documents all day. Or peo…
It's so rare, as a developer to actually get to sit in on user testing, and every time it is just incredibly valuable to see what people actually do.
Re: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video]
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "invert a binary tree" thing is a reference to a tweet by Max Howell [1] where he complains that he didn't get hired by Google even though he wrote Homebrew, which he estimates 90% of their engineers use. Howell describes himself as a "dick" [2], hadn't been involved with the Homebrew project for years, and has since gone on to write the NFT-based package manager Tea [3] and pkgx [4], which is an "everything app"…
This wasn't the only story like that. I at least remember similar stories about some kind of database / library maintainer and yet another javascript framework. Dont have enough time to find them now, but it's kind a obvious people would like to apply to places that already use their open source code. I would at least try, but no one use open source game-clone engines so no way on earth anyone will use what I worked…
Conversely, a story from the opposite end of the extreme: Fresh out of college I got an interview at a company that made games. It was exactly what I wanted to do and I made it miraculously far given the fact that I had zero real world experience. I made it to round three but ultimately got rejected. Who did they hire instead? A friend who works at the company later told me that it was down to two candidates. It was me vs the guy who wrote the game engine they make all their games in.