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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point; the question could be, "What source control do you use?" Or ask about unit testing, CI, deployment, etc.
If asking something like that you may want to carefully ask how widely adopted the policies they mentioned actually are....
So now we have open source questions? Really? "open source" questions?
Yeah, source as in text form, not some binary that your brain compiles those letters into!
Perhaps drifting slightly OT, but this is a good example of why I'm not a fan of the current trend to make the "any questions for us?" section of interviews evaluative. I get the theory, that good people ought to ask smart questions, but it feels trivially hackable the same way all those stupid brain teaser questions from '90s interview processes were. In other words, professional interviewees - the kind of people wh…
> the kind of people who memorise answer books, question lists, etc. - will outperform people who are smart and skilled If people who just memorize can outperform smart people, it just means that the one conducting the interview is not really smart, and so incapable of recognizing expertise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the kind of people who memorise answer books, question lists, etc. - will outperform people who are smart and skilled If people who just memorize can outperform smart people, it just means that the one conducting the interview is not really smart, and so incapable of recognizing expertise.
As someone who has had far more failures at evaluating candidates than successes, I find it very hard to wade through the BS in a meeting that lasts an hour or two. The strangest people I've met seemed normal for that short of time. I usually have to work with someone for up to six months to get a real feeling of their ability to adjust to new situations, learn new technology, and strength of work ethic.
Perhaps drifting slightly OT, but this is a good example of why I'm not a fan of the current trend to make the "any questions for us?" section of interviews evaluative. I get the theory, that good people ought to ask smart questions, but it feels trivially hackable the same way all those stupid brain teaser questions from '90s interview processes were. In other words, professional interviewees - the kind of people wh…
> the kind of people who memorise answer books, question lists, etc. - will outperform people who are smart and skilled If people who just memorize can outperform smart people, it just means that the one conducting the interview is not really smart, and so incapable of recognizing expertise.
No, it means that interviewing is a lousy way to select people and it's full of bias. We know this. We know that interviewing doesn't select the best candidate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the kind of people who memorise answer books, question lists, etc. - will outperform people who are smart and skilled If people who just memorize can outperform smart people, it just means that the one conducting the interview is not really smart, and so incapable of recognizing expertise.
> If people who just memorize can outperform smart people, it just means that the one conducting the interview is not really smart, and so incapable of recognizing expertise. No, it means that interviewing is a lousy way to select people and it's full of bias. We know this. We know that interviewing doesn't select the best candidate.
My comment was not saying the opposite.
> best candidate
I never was talking about best candidate.
Their very first example question is "Do you use source control?", taken from a year 2000 post of Joel on Software. I think this is no longer a good question. (The answer will almost certainly be the affirmative, and the person asking it might sound unaware.)
You'd think that, but some legacy systems might not have it, I don't want to name and shame, but a lot of our code is on an IBM Series i (used to be called as400?) and the source control for it is basically manually adding a comment with the ticket number next to any changes - unsurprisingly they're a bit coy about the technologies used in interviews and target people fresh out of uni who don't know any better, my re…
It is becoming a super niche market, once the dinosaurs die off, whoever can come in and work on it will make bank. In fact my company is getting pretty anxious about it, as the cost of even migrating from it is going to be high.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd think that, but some legacy systems might not have it, I don't want to name and shame, but a lot of our code is on an IBM Series i (used to be called as400?) and the source control for it is basically manually adding a comment with the ticket number next to any changes - unsurprisingly they're a bit coy about the technologies used in interviews and target people fresh out of uni who don't know any better, my re…
We've got as400 at work, surprisingly a lot of companies still run it. Thankfully, I do 0 work on it and focus on other applications. It is becoming a super niche market, once the dinosaurs die off, whoever can come in and work on it will make bank. In fact my company is getting pretty anxious about it, as the cost of even migrating from it is going to be high.
As a bit of evidence in support of Racket being a secret sauce for this, I'd point to how ITA Software (before they were aquired by Google) leveraged Lisp to integrate a new, modern node with the IBM legacy airline reservation system network. They publicly stated that a Lisp was what made this effort viable.
(But doing a Web site or app is so much easier and less risky. VCs are set up to give a site/app dotcom wads of money, and want to see you go through the funding rounds and acquisition/IP. And the technical problems are usually well-understood from the start, and it's just a matter of execution. And you can pick a site/app idea that doesn't involve having to do difficult enterprise sales courtships. Also, personally, given that I started working young, so some of the dates on my resume cause my job applications to be deleted instantly, I'm not anxious to be adding showstopper keywords like AS/400 to my resume.)