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by throwboi123 1297 days ago
> A surprisingly large fraction of applicants, even those with masters' degrees and PhDs in computer science, fail during interviews when asked to carry out basic programming tasks. For example, I've personally interviewed graduates who can't answer "Write a loop that counts from 1 to 10" or "What's the number after F in hexadecimal?

I wonder if this is true?

1 comments

This is a quote in https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ if anyone's wondering.

What does the author win by lying about it?

It could just be a mistake, or no longer true, it doesn't have to be a lie.
You are right, I was concentrating more on the second half of the quote which is about someone's personal experience. If what they describe is what they've encountered, it should not have an expiry date.

For the extrapolating "surprisingly large fraction" part, I have no idea. Maybe someone is keeping count on these numbers; it would be interesting to see them.