29
StOnE
3y

I've been coding for over 8 years, and whenever a recruiter says we have you do these coding challenges or recite them an algorithm from memory, I say "You know, the longer you've been programming, the less you remember how to do this stuff, because you don't use it in real life." They say, "Well we just want to see how you think and how you solve problems." B.S.
These types of algorithmic programming challenges besides the simpler ones don't show how you think. A lot of stuff like the dynamic programming and other optimization problems were solved by phd professors after many years of research. Nobody would think up these solutions on their own.
These programming challenges weed out
experienced developers unless they want to
take the time to re-learn this stuff. It explains why google, facebook or amazon are filled with young and inexperienced developers and how come it takes so many thousands of them to get anything done, and they still have buggy products...

Comments
  • 9
    Here’s a REAL challenge question! What was the last innovative thing from Facebook or google released in the last five years?
  • 4
    And is it me or is Facebook stuck in 2009? It looks seriously outdated
  • 2
    Sorry for third post in a row but I really don’t know what Facebook has been doing all this time. It’s like their latest update usually amounts to tiny widgets or “like” animations any idiot with basic CSS and HTML can do. And these updates don’t come quickly either. What do devs over there even do all day? Facebook is slow as molasses when it comes to improving and anything new in general for fucks sake
  • 6
    @TeachMeCode
    Facebook -> React
    Google -> Flutter

    As far as developer tools go, I think both have been rather innovative. As for commercial offerings I can’t really say as I only use gmail and don’t use Facebook. Instagram is aight tho
  • 4
    @wackOverflow

    Google -> Go, Tensorflow, Flutter
    Facebook -> Pytorch, React, Oculus

    😁
  • 2
    @wackOverflow ok, I’m a react advocate so yes, in terms of development tools Facebook did really well. I totally agree with that
  • 4
    @StOnE He's not wrong though, at least with the general gist, when it comes to Google. They haven't stagnated completely (Flutter is a great example) but boy have they slowed down. Go was released over a decade ago now. Tensorflow was released over 5 years ago, and that was just when they open sourced it - internally it was a thing well before then.

    Compare that to between 2005-2010 when they released Google Maps, Google Code, Google Street View, Google Wave (now the multi-user editing capability in Google docs), Go, etc. - and they were all pretty revolutionary & popular products in their time. These days it's slowed down to a mere trickle, and considering the number of ads I see saying "hey, apply to Google, the interview process isn't too bad honest!" - I suspect a large part of that is because they're immensely struggling to attract top talent in the way they used to.
  • 3
    @TeachMeCode what was the last innovative thing from anyone? Tech is in stagnation right now.
  • 1
    @TeachMeCode Google made PBF. It's not revolutionary, but it's so good I'd be very surprised if anyone successfully pushed high performance data-agnostic encoding significantly further in the next 50 years.
  • 1
    i think google has its hands in angular,
  • 2
    @iiii There are two kinds of innovation: revolutionary one, i.e. new things such as smartphones that gave you mobile internet, and evolutionary one, i.e. improving existing things.

    You can't always have the former because then you'd never get out of the early adopter phase with unrefined and expensive products.

    However, when I compare my current PC to the one before, the evolutionary innovation is there. It is a lot faster while only needing a quarter of the power draw, and it is not just quiet, but inaudible.
  • 1
    @iiii On top of that, CPU and GPU in 2010 cost me 460 EUR together. Adjusted for inflation, that's 525 EUR in 2020. However, the APU that replaced both of them only cost me 125 EUR last year.
  • 3
    @TeachMeCode
    > I really don’t know what Facebook has been doing all this time

    Maintaining and improving an unofficial personal information marketing platform does require substantial amounts of time and resources.

    The advertising engine also doesn't maintain itself...

    Throwing a handful of UI/UX mods just to give the public an impression that "something's being done" is a task for their job interviewees.
  • 1
    @netikras that makes sense
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop You phrased it perfectly. In this case, PBF is an evolutionary step in data encoding, combining many advancements of the field in a perfectly normal and notably unimaginative manner to produce something that solves a well known and frequently discussed problem really well.
  • 0
    @lbfalvy PBF?
  • 0
    @iiii Google Protocol Buffers
  • 1
    @lbfalvy shouldn't it be GPB then?
  • 1
    @iiii I only know about the whole thing because OpenStreetMap is distributed in PBF, and they use this name. Google themselves also seem to prefer it, although I can't find any instance of them using this name right now. The docs call it protocol buffer or "proto" for short (which would objectively be a stupid name)
  • 3
    @lbfalvy I know it as protobuf...
  • 2
    @iiii PBF may be the initialism for "protocol buffer file" then.
  • 0
    "solved by PhD Professors after many years of Research" - totally true
  • 1
    hm What do devs over there even do all-day
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