Comment by _yb2s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _yb2s | Hacker News Reader

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> I sometimes have to google for the names of functions I've already used a hundred times

This is why I have always been terrified of having to do a standard 'whiteboard' coding interview, and really don't want to ever participate in administering them to others. I know if I was ever tested in this way, I would be unable to remember the basic function names in languages I have used daily for years... and yet I have developed sophisticated software tools in these languages with a large global userbase. I fear that in an interview people would decide I am a fraud, and couldn't have really done what I have done when it appears I actually don't even remember the basics. But my mind just doesn't work that way, I can't remember length vs size either, even if I can design a complex algorithm, and turn it into a good piece of software under the actual conditions of work in the real world.

I've written plenty of whiteboarding interviews in something resembling Java and decided that I needed a tuple class, which for most purposes doesn't really exist in Java. So I just used the concept of a Tuple. I can say that most people on a whiteboarding interview panel don't really care if you borrow abstractions of ideas, the most I've been asked to do is define an interface for these implementations.

Honestly if they care that much about rote memorization of syntax, it's a red flag.

Good whiteboard interviewers will happily stipulate that something like the thing you can't remember the name of definitely exists and you can call it whatever you want in your solution.

> This is why I have always been terrified of having to do a standard 'whiteboard' coding interview

I too don't like the idea of these, but in the case where you're solving a problem in front of someone I feel like as long as you explain your thought process you'd be generally fine. If you can't remember whether the method is length() or size() or something else just pick one and explain what you're doing. Intelligent interviewers would likely understand that you're familiar with the concepts and would be able to accept your result or let you compile/execute and fix the issue.

back when whiteboards were a thing, most were not testing exact syntax..

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