Hacker News Reader

Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

Short bus or long bus? A long bus is about twice as big as a short bus, here in Denver, at least.

Also, with or without seats?

I was thinking the same, but it'd be funnier to take it one step further:

"Short bus? Long bus? Double decker bus? Coach bus? VW Bus?" Since I'm not sure of the relevance of the question, I choose a Matchbox Bus. The answer is 0. 0 golfballs fit in a matchbox bus. Enough bikeshedding. Let's move along to questions that will more reliably assess skills I will be using on the job as a software engineer."

"Bob Slydell: I'd like to move us right along to a Peter Gibbons. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him."

All questions like this would tell me about a candidate is that they have a high tolerance for bikeshedding.

> "Short bus? Long bus? Double decker bus? Coach bus? VW Bus?" Since I'm not sure of the relevance of the question, I choose a Matchbox Bus. The answer is 0. 0 golfballs fit in a matchbox bus.

You never know how far they want you to go with their game. This could mark you as a genius, or as an ass.

I suspect that I'd be marked as an ass, though I reckon I'd get brownie points for correctively outing the bikeshedding.

In fact, it'd be even funnier to answer the question, then ask the question "I'm building a bikeshed. What color do I paint it?"

the point of the article is that that detail doesn't matter. short vs long might double the answer, but orders of magnitude are the only interesting answer.

however, I feel that the abstraction away from something connected to the job you're hiring for is more harmful than useful - definitely ask those questions, but don't phrase it in such outlandish and clearly designed-for-interviews formats.

I've asked candidates to estimate the number of RSS feeds on the internet. I've found it a useful question which offers a lot of avenues of discussion and means to probe thought processes - and it's connected to my work.

Despite the questionable wisdom of it, right there in your answer is exactly why these questions get asked: you've just given the interviewer a mountain of information about you.

I've probably sat through 500 or more interviews over the last 15 years, and the percentage of candidates who would approach such a question with a blank, not incredulous, but blank look is utterly astounding.

Everybody knows there are different kinds of buses. It is the first thing that springs to everybody's mind when you ask "How many golfballs fit on a bus?".

Someone who didn't ask about what kind of bus is under the impression that, as it's just a toy problem, the kind of bus doesn't really matter, and they're just supposed to pick an average kind of bus and play along with the stupid game.

You're making a number of assumptions, most of which I believe are wrong.

a) No, it's not the first thing that springs to everybody's mind. Experience says it's the first thing that springs to a relatively small percentage of minds, actually.

b) No, someone who didn't ask about the kind of bus isn't necessarily under the impression that it's a toy problem. Again, experience says that for a large percentage of people the problem, or more specifically any problem of the ilk of this problem, is completely overwhelming.

> Experience says it's the first thing that springs to a relatively small percentage of minds, actually.

Can you explain in more detail about what experience lets you know this?

> No, someone who didn't ask about the kind of bus isn't necessarily under the impression that it's a toy problem. Again, experience says that for a large percentage of people the problem, or more specifically any problem of the ilk of this problem, is completely overwhelming.

Also I'd like to know how you know these people are 'overwhelmed' with the problem itself, rather than just with not understanding the point of it or not knowing whether its OK to make assumptions or ask questions about the type of the bus etc.

It's not about getting the "right" answer, it's about how you approach tackling the problem. If you talk through your solution as you do it, no one is going to question which assumption you make. The assumptions are baked into the answer, but part of the point of these kinds of questions is that they don't matter that much. Or more to the point, the uncertainty in your answer is on the order of the uncertainty of your assumptions, which hardly matter whether you assume a 25 ft bus or a 50 ft bus, if you think the precision of you answer justifies confidence better than a factor of 2, you don't understand the problem as well as you think you do.

And the seats really don't matter, volume-wise. Unless you're actually counting the golf balls, which, I agree, would be silly.

> And the seats really don't matter, volume-wise.

How do you know?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com