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Comment by FabHK | Hacker News Reader

> I've got actual paid work to do.

Well, see, many graduates or experienced job seekers don’t.

If that’s what you’re selecting for - fine. You’d be missing out on people who need to care for kids or other relatives and on people who assume that a company that requires you to invest significant unpaid time on top of the regular interviews is just not worth it. Even “experienced job seekers” might have the time to do 1 or 2 of these “tests”, but typically you’d apply to more than 1 or 2 companies while looking for a job.

In practice, I am both too busy to waste a day on a programming task just to secure a seat at an interview, as well as willing to spend days on a cool problem. It all depends on how much I want the job and how much the actual spent time is my choice and not expected.

Part of my argument is that not everyone has the choice to spend an additional 3 hours per interview, meaning a process including tasks like these discards these applicants.

I think if the company is posing an interview question that requires total fluency over a legacy version of C++, they're probably not looking for graduates.

C++11 was not legacy in 2013. It barely is considered legacy today.

C++14 is a safe bet. C++17 is almost pushing it. C++23 isn't even fully implemented by any compiler.

I tend to default to C++11 with C++[11,23]-portability.

In general, write maximally portable code without using vendor- or standard-specific features without a/some very good reason(s).

Also, C++11 is a monumental improvement over C++ from the days of rusty sharp edges of 90's C++ where one needed to follow strict standards to avoid nonobvious UB.

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