Live data from Hacker News

Python coding interview challenges

github.com

251–252 of 252 posts

Re: Python coding interview challenges

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's the thing: not everyone is you, not everyone is passionate about technology, and it's not reasonable to expect people to do more of their job outside of work for free. You might like, and that's great, but people have families and hobbies and interests that sometimes have nothing to do with the 40 hours they churn through for their bosses. I'm so sick of interviewing for companies who want "passionate" deve…

> not everyone is you, not everyone is passionate about technology, and it's not reasonable to expect people to do more of their job outside of work for free I am not sure how you would twist personal development and remaining up to date with "do more of their job outside of work for free". Let's get away from technology for a moment. You need to go to the doctor. Would you rather go to a doctor who is passionate abo…

> I am not sure how you would twist personal development and remaining up to date with "do more of their job outside of work for free".

Well, unless you're doing personal development at work during the 40 hours (or so) that you're required to be there, then you're probably not getting paid for it. I mean, I'm willing to tinker on my own, but you can be a good developer without doing it (you can also be a bad developer in spite of doing that).

> Would you rather go to a doctor who is passionate about their work and constantly devoting personal time to remain up to date on the latest research, drugs, studies, techniques and technology?

I want to go to a reasonably friendly, competent doctor. I really don't care how passionate they are about being a doctor, because I don't view passion as a proxy for quality (because it isn't).

> I'd pick option #1 every time. Same with engineers.

So my friend is a brilliant chemical engineer, and yet she doesn't sit around designing plants at home on the weekends. No, she hangs out with friends, sings in a choir, watches TV shows, travels, etc. I don't particularly understand the tech industry's fetish with eating, sleeping, and breathing code, and it's a damn shame that we're pushing away really fantastic nine-to-five developers.

> Look, if you are not interested in remaining current, that's OK. Just don't expect to have access to the same opportunities. It's as simple as that.

So it turns out that most software isn't created in Silicon Valley, and more money is made by crufty old Java and Perl enterprise systems than the next sexy JavaScript framework (which is probably just a poor rehash of a computer science concept Alan Kay developed in the '60s).

> Wow. Not sure how you made the jump to harassment there. Gender has nothing to do with it.

Gender has nothing to do with it if you don't experience the kind of issues that women in the workplace face, sure. If you're a man, you're not particularly affected by issues that affect women.

Re: Python coding interview challenges

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never once has knowing about the performance of linked lists or hashmaps been necessary to fix an API issue. 99% of your API issues will be "this doesn't work for X reason", not "this API response is slow because weren't using X instead of Y data structure".

You sound like you've worked with significantly different code than I have. Your "never once" is my "almost always", and my "X reason" is often because I'm working with an immature, unreleased library developed by another team at my employer.

What's more likely: that everyone needs to know intimate details about basic data structures or that the world is held together with duct tape and Perl and 95% of code is written by people not in Silicon Valley who need it to just work?
Post reply on HN