Quora - Programming Challenges | Hacker News Reader

Quora - Programming Challenges

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36 pointsmshafrir29 comments

Smart people, have bad ideas.http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html

I'm not saying this app is entirely a bad idea. I had Zuckerberg telling me for 20 minutes that this site is awesome. I just became ridiculously bored after the first week of using it and I'm concerned the founding team isn't gaining real-life perspective as to whether or not the idea is any good.

Perfect example: Someone asked a question the other day "What does Max Levchin look for when hiring", and guess who responded to the question? You guessed it, Max Levchin himself. In the real world, this wouldn't happen and as the user population grows, the celebs roll out and the people looking for questions about brushing their dog's teeth roll in. I don't see the value beyond it's current elitist state.

Why? "Ordinary" non-techie people don't have questions that their friends/others can answer?

Bootstrapping with a targeted and "elite" crowd is pretty much ideal. Then you get the community to be self-sustaining since it has both an organically narrow focus (avoids being spread too thin) and gets attention within that community through a mutually recursive process of being useful to them and attracting people respected in that community.

The one main potential objection is that this site has no value to non-techies (even when the community grows beyond just techies), but I have no idea how one could possibly argue that.

And no, it didn't catch my interest right away either, but I see its utility. (I want fewer "distractions" in my life, not more.)

You're assuming that the product is not going to evolve past its current state. There are many features to be built, and I'm sure they haven't even scratched the surface yet.

Regardless, the primary feed is set up so you're following things you want to follow and your relevant network. This acts as a crucial and necessary filter to avoid too much noise.

Also I've browsed around many topics, and it's definitely not limited to technical subjects. If done correctly, I really think this could be a nice complement to Wikipedia.

I disagree that this is a bad idea. I think it's a good idea that hasn't been done well and it remains to be seen whether quora is up to the challenge. (btw, if anyone has an invite, i'd love to check out the site: padlane@gmail.com).

Invite sent.

You challenge my point and you don't even have an account. Argument Fail

so, did anyone try this, this evening? i need to go out for a run, and then get some sleep, but i've got an initial result for the "duct" question that's taking 6s on my laptop, but it's quite possible i have some bugs (ie i may be completely wrong). i should have written some tests on the way... :o)

and if anyone is thinking of trying, i'd recommend it - it's not a huge amount of code and requires at least one smart idea (i think - had me bashing my head against a wall for a while...).

[if anyone wants to compare results - just the final number, no spoilers please - then drop me an email]

Gave it a brief thought. What I see is a TSP on a grid graph. Maybe I missed some detail. Do you see a better idea?

yes, i think that's a valid way of looking at it - the grid adds some extra properties to a general graph which you might be able to exploit to get better efficiency.

[but i don't really want to spoil things for quora by discussing a solution here, i was more interested in swapping final results so that people could check they have the right answer]

ps i believe my solution is ok, now, after checking it at lunch time, but it's a little slower than theirs, which is making me think i have missed something.

Python seems to be the preferred programming language, I find it interesting given that the founding team is from Facebook which I hear was originally built using a lot of PHP.

I see some of you have accounts. Anybody willing to explain how this is different from Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers? I didn't find the About page enlightening. Thanks!

the UX is awesome for one thing.

Funny enough, there's a whole category called How Quora is different from X? http://www.quora.com/t/2410/How_is_Quora_different_from_X?q=...

It's a good rundown. What's your email? I'll send you an invite.

aryeh-yc@yucs.org

Thanks!

cool, sent! :)

I guess when tiny unknown Yahoo Answer clone based startups with nothing to offer except a lot of worthless stock options that will probably never be worth anything put up an interesting programming puzzle, talented engineers will magically fall out of the sky and beg on their hands and knees to get a chance to work there.

http://www.quora.com/about/team

I guess that totally refutes my argument! It's like Quroa, because of where the founders previously worked, suddenly got all this prestige and glamor that will turn into real fame and fortune someday because they're entitled to it.

pg recently said that one of the biggest changes in his thinking since starting yc is that he no longer believes that coming from a good school is an indicator of success in a startup and that this was an unquestioned assumption of his when he started out. at the same time, it helps to have smart people around and quora definitely seems to have a few.

They appear to have a solid team, but this is bad idea that keeps being re-tried and re-failed again and again. It occasionally works in University Recruiting, but otherwise companies eventually realize that top, highly skilled people have jobs and are generally busy and have the right to be a little picky, and are not about to spend an hour solving puzzles for a job they know very little about. Who does have lots of time to jump through these kinds of hoops are people who dont have jobs or spend a lot of time in their jobs notworking.

Ouch. These sorts of job puzzles actually serve double duty as great quality filters for both employer and employee. Employer gets to find out which candidates know their stuff and enjoy solving interesting and challenging problems (and most of the rest don't bother applying). Employee gets to learn that this employer has a smart and passionate engineering culture (as opposed to a corporate drone "engineers just serve a clerical function" culture).

And what do you mean "failed"? Like these guys? http://itasoftware.com/careers/hiringpuzzles.html I wouldn't mind "failing" like them.

ITA and Quora are on two different planes to put it mildly.

Oh yes, that's right, because engineers don't care about compensation or their future, and probably don't have a family to feed! You know I think all engineers must be 22 year old graduates interested in technical challenges. I think when they go into the middle ages they just vanish, kind of like in Logan's Run. poof

I heard you can feed a family of four on a technical challenge for a year!

Where did I say that technical challenges are the only thing to care about and that salary/compensation should be neglected? I would expect a company that is courting experts to offer compensation appropriate for experts.

I can tell you what I know from experience having had the luxury of working on teams with some Damn good people (from PowerSet, Google, Microsoft, OneRiot), and a few less than good people. You recruit good people. YOu find them at the top of their field at whatever level they are at, evaluate them by how well they have performed in teh past and what they have accomplished, check for culture, and sell yourself. Good people are not lining up to post applicaitons, submitting resume's into web forms or taking quizzes.

You go find 100 people in 100 companies with rockstar performance, excluding those that are still in university (graduate or undergrad), and you wont find 2 of the 100 that will stop and fill out a test.

You want good people? Hit your networks or find someone with a netowrk, and find someone who is busy and well respected in whatever he or she does. Good people are working right now, not trolling job boards with time to take tests.

There is a time for tests and puzzles: in the interview process. At this point her or she understands the role and the team, and now you want to know how (s)he thinks, and if the culture is right. Throw the toughest you got at that point, but on a web form? Thats a great way to attract B & C talent, in my opinion.

Have you used Quora? And/or seen who is using Quora? :) They have built what is simply the most addictive Q&A site. It remains to be seen if the usefulness persists once users start coming en masse. However, the potential is definitely there.

Also the team is very well-respected (previously at Facebook) and I think A LOT of people would love to work and learn from them. Maybe even for free for a limited time.

Just started using it, and it is among the snappiest (latency-wise) web applications I've tried.

It appears to be running on Amazon EC2 with Cloudfront for a CDN.

Well, time will tell. When I see something like this on a site I've never heard of before regardless of who the founders are, I guess they're aiming for young kids who are into this kind of "lord of the rings" shit at their job to go join them. Not people who actually expect real value from their employers for the work they provide.

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