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Comment by SoulMan | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure how Google/Amazon/Facebook judge a programmer by asking to write "production ready" code on few sheet of paper where one can not rearrange blocks, edit. How many does it in real world ? Unless its 1977 and you are doing FORTRAN in punch cards.

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Much of the interview process is used to determine if the candidate can program a computer at all. It's pretty obvious in the opening minutes if I ask you to write out a simple function in your chosen strong language (such as strlen, if you said C) whether you can or cannot do this. If you can stand there and write out something like:

  size_t strlen(const char* str) { [return something] }

Then at least I know that you've ever programmed in this language before, which sets you apart, strangely enough, from 95% of the applicants. I won't even care if you write the return type as int instead of size_t, as long as you're obviously aware that every function declaration must have a return type (or whatever the requirements of your language might be).

From there we can start talking about graph traversal or whatever, to determine what you know about complexity analysis.

It's really not about "production-ready code" but fluency. When you speak your native language you don't constantly bumble and make errors and leave out important words. It should be the same when you write code in your favorite programming language, and whether you can or cannot do so becomes readily apparent in technical interviews.

Is it true that they don't care what language you know, and that it doesn't have to be one of either - Java, C or C++?

I have heard that what they are looking for is your problem solving skills and your ability understand the problem space and the tradeoffs.

But then I've also heard that if you are not proficient in a statically typed language that will hurt your candidacy. I am not sure if this true. I would that is someone has good CS skills and good problem solving ability that they could pick up any language statically typed or not.

Curious what someone more in the know regarding Google/FB/AWS has to say on the matter.

I did my google on-site interview entirely in Perl which at that time was my strongest lang.

So the idea is that as long as you have good CS fundamentals and problem solving skills, what language(s) you know doesn't matter as you will likely be able to be pick those up as you go?

Is that still true then?

Did you get the job?

> Then at least I know that you've ever programmed in this language before, which sets you apart, strangely enough, from 95% of the applicants.

At best, it sets you apart from 95% of interviewees. I rarely get the chance to prove I can actually program. Even then, I think that is a gross exaggeration.

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