Ask HN: Challenge me
From the responses in my previous thread [1] I think I might be underselling myself a little. Problem is, I want a job but I don't really know if I'm a good coder or not, or how strong my various skills are. All I know is, either I am arrogant and delusional or every professional coworker I've had is a much worse coder than I am.
I'm not really looking to reach hundreds of people, I'm just hoping there's one or two hackers out there who could help me "calibrate" my skill level, so to speak.
I guess I should give an overview of what I know so people know what to test... I have a CS degree, I know my algorithms and complexity theory fairly well, and have good knowledge of computer graphics and cryptography. I also know a little AI, basic classifiers and a little GAs.
On the practical front, I'm great at Java, good at PHP, ok at C. My C++ knowledge is very limited, and I don't have much functional programming experience. I have some experience in web dev, and I have knowledge of pretty much the entire stack there. I could build a decent PHP site top to bottom, setting up the webserver (Linux or FreeBSD), designing the database, coding it up, HTML and CSS (I kick ass at front-end, except at JS), caching (memcache(d) and a reverse proxy). At least, I think I can. But I'm fully aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect [2], and so that's where you come in to help me know my place.
I realise it could potentially be a big time investment if one person goes through all this, I wish I had the means to compensate you fairly for your time, but perhaps I could offer a small gift as a token of my appreciation.
Thank you.
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2177370 [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect