[jaimzob]

:) This is surely just degenerating into parody now. I can't wait for part 4: "Build a Turing Machine from scratch using paper-clips and sticky tape and send it to me for grading. Remember to show your working and no looking it up on Google."

[irahul]

Most of the questions are pretty trivial and relevant(may be not to you but that doesn't make it irrelevant or a parody).

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4635946

[orangethirty]

It is irrelevant because the real world is composed of CRUD apps in [Java, C#, PHP], and you don't need to know most of the subjects the OP talks in his "tests." It is a parody, because the OP seems to not have worked a common software position, where most time is spent building new UIs for marketing or management, making complex and awkward joins, and making sure changes don't break the spaghetti. It all sounds like academia talk, which is fine (and valuable), but not a real sign of real world programming.

I will say that the tests have been fun to complete, and have helped me fill in the gaps here and there. But as someone who is hiring programmers at this very moment, I would not hire someone with such an approach to programming. This person would (I assume from experience) write complex code all day to show off his/her knowledge of advanced CS topics. Then not document it because the code is just obvious to read. And finally quit after a month because the job is not up to his/her standards or challenging. They would then write a blog post ranting about how programming has turned into a circus or produce a series of "tests" to show off their superior knowledge.

[irahul]

> It is irrelevant because the real world is composed of CRUD apps

> but not a real sign of real world programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Real world? As opposed to the OP's world which would be called what? The Matrix?

> It is a parody, because the OP seems to not have worked a common software position,

And for some reason, only the people who have worked for common software positions can have opinions about software?

A good majority is making CRUD apps, yes, but the spam classification for GMail needs to be written, the binary data packing has to be done for Dropbox, Facebook has to detect faces, that small startup doing a storage engine for MySql has to understand B-tree, automated translation has to understand n-gram modelling, tarsnap has to make sure the data is secure, and so on and on.

> But as someone who is hiring programmers at this very moment, I would not hire someone with such an approach to programming.

Well, if all you are doing is writing CRUD apps, I don't see how someone like OP is going to be even remotely a good fit. You need a mechanic, you hire a mechanic; you don't go looking for someone who can design a V engine.

[orangethirty]

Well, if all you are doing is writing CRUD apps, I don't see how someone like OP is going to be even remotely a good fit. You need a mechanic, you hire a mechanic; you don't go looking for someone who can design a V engine.

Funny that you wrote that. I used to be a mechanic, and have modified my share of Porsche 911s. Have a couple that put out above 600 horsepower when measured at the wheels. Almost doubling their factory output. Designed turbocharger systems, intake manifolds (which was difficult due to me not previously knowing much about fluid dynamics , and such), intercoolers, stand alone fuel injection systems, and aerodynamics with composite materials (mostly fiberglass and carbon fiber). If you ask me right now about any of the subjects I would draw a blank. Why? Because I learned how to do something back then for a couple of projects, and then moved on. I did not need to know fluid dynamics for my day job fixing cars. Neither did I need to know much math. Just needed to know how to do the basics that the work required. Which were mostly things learned in the field.

Same with programming. I started out writing programs that solved a problem. Then continued with such an approach until hitting a wall due to lack of mathmatical knowledge. Learned whatever needed and moved on. Do I remmeber most of the math I've had to learn? Not really. I don't use it everyday. If I have to use it again, I'll just go to my reference material and refresh my memory.

Well, if all you are doing is writing CRUD apps, I don't see how someone like OP is going to be even remotely a good fit. You need a mechanic, you hire a mechanic; you don't go looking for someone who can design a V engine.

Problem is that all these tests do is promote the idea that real-world programming inside the matrix is about CS. Its not. Not knowing the answers to the tests created by the OP does not make anyone a bad programmer. Hell, the most productive programmer I know used to work with Visual Basic and Excell/Access all day long. His code served thousands of users and he shipped something out every week. When I asked him about big O notation his face drew a blank. But boy could he knock out software in a couple of days.