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This reminds me of people calling out DeviantArt several years ago in Who's Hiring posts, and their hiring practices.

Which culminated in this blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3061860

What's interesting to me about the discussion in this article is how many people talked about wanting to adopt Google/Amazon's hiring process and how they liked the 7 interviews/whiteboarding way more than take-home assignments.

Call me weird, but I prefer the assignments than the mindless discussions about balancing trees and Big-Oh notation.

I think there is a place for both. Maybe not data structures, but things like application architecture and development practices are ripe for good discussion.

A well designed take home assignment, meanwhile can be a good filter, telling you immediately if the candidate knows the basics and has the added benefit of showing you strengths and weaknesses in their practice.

Having written a thesis about "balancing trees and Bih-Oh notation" I am saddened that you consider the topic mindless :)

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