If you want to be a good developer, learn to program.
If you want to be a well-paid developer, learn leetcode.
If you want to be a well-paid developer, learn leetcode.
Sure, it means that from time to time you will reject people like the Homebrew creator. And it also means the recruiting process now sucks for the applicant.
But in a context where it's extremely tricky to evaluate an applicant during the short span of an interview, it seems honestly like the least "arbitrary/trusting your vibes" recruiting method we have now which could be deployed at a large scale.
At least, you are getting people you know had the ability to remember this stuff, and also were willing to put in the effort to learn it.
In this situation, things like soft skills, thinking outside the box, etc are actually a downside. Rejecting the Homebrew creator is a desirable outcome in that case - because said creator is unlikely put up with "ticket factory" work.
If you legitimately need a "ticket to code" machine, Leetcode is the right approach. Just that most non-FAANG businesses need more than just "ticket to code", and then Leetcode becomes the wrong answer.
E.g. for frontend we ask them to replicate a page based on video or png, with this json data, at home. Then, on interview we ask them to improve/add functionality, on their laptops if they want.
That works better than stupid tasks like finding 3 items in array that sum to 100.
So much of what is debated on HN is people talking past each other from these opposing perspectives.
The more reasonable coding interviews I've had, on the other hand, I could have solved before even going to college. Those companies were (rightfully) just trying to get a sense for whether you can write and debug code in the real world, not memorize algorithms.