[justinlau]

I can't believe how many people here are averse to the idea of demonstrating coding ability in an interview.

Github doesn't reflect the amount of time that somebody put into writing that code. It doesn't reflect how long it took for them to iron out bugs from a poor initial implementation.

My experience is that correctness AND speed both count when a person is developing software. I'm sure you guys have worked with people who are really sharp, can talk the talk, but just flail around helplessly in an IDE, constantly solicit help from their neighbors, and burn up milestones doing very little. I want to make sure that those people don't get hired.

I also want to know that these people are going to use idioms that aren't wasteful, that their naming conventions are sane, that they are being thoughtful and methodical about their implementation rather than grafting edge cases onto edge cases.

[prodigal_erik]

Github doesn't even reflect whether somebody actually wrote that code themselves or merely copied it and tweaked some identifiers. It's not that I want to be this suspicious, but I find I have to now that the salaries have attracted so many losers and con artists to the industry.

[justinlau]

This too. It's much too easy to lift source from somewhere else, or hire somebody from India to write code on your behalf.

I generally don't trust anything that I can't verify firsthand. Stated experience gets a guy in the door for the interview, but their performance during the interview is all that matters to me.