[fvox13]

Why do so many people advocate reinventing the wheel? As far as I can tell, it wastes a LOT of time, especially in the interview process. One of the companies I interviewed with before I landed at my current job asked me to use pencil and paper to re-implement a bubble sort in Python. Why? My job is to build a house, not forge a hammer. And the fact that it was a bubble sort instead of something... better... was like using a rubber mallet to pound in nails.

I understand that, when you're learning algorithms and such, that there's no substitute for implementing them, to learn them. But when someone with several years of development experience comes in, with a portfolio to show, why waste their time?

[hackinthebochs]

Its a step up from Fizzbuzz, but its the same sort of test. It tests whether you have the capacity to think logically about a problem and code up a solution. The mental faculties exercised when coding bubble sort (or any of the so-called "CS puzzles") is the same sort of faculties that are required when orchestrating the various modules when generating the response to an HTTP request. This just strips all the fluff.