Writing well is underrated. Too many people think they do it well. Kind of like Dutch people and their command of the English language.
46 karma · joined April 7, 2012
155k is nice, could be more.
Then, we talk and I look for all the qualities they /do/ have.
Sadly, lots of interviewers get a kick out of finding out what the interviewee does not know, so they can feel superior.
Coding challenges should be: -1. take-home -2. concise -3. relevant to the job -4. take no more than 4 hours
One example of such a decent test that I came across involved having to read a file, parsing it and turning its contents into some basic HTML. During the interview we talked about things like "what if the file were really big", e.g. let the candidate reflect on the limitations of their implementation. This was enough to suss out where somebody is, professionally. And nobody had to have a bad day.
This dynamic will probably never change. Clojure will remain an acquired taste, which is fine, I guess. Those 'in the know' will happily continue to develop effectively with it.
It's quite the same with education.
This sort of thing is not a matter of binary choices.
You mean black-hat hacking?
Wake up, guys. People have had tech giants invade their life way too much and they've all seen in The Social Network what kind of person a poster boy like Mark Zuckerberg really is.
What is ironic is that GCHQ is doing all this at the expense of the British people, whose interest they should be serving.