
Carnac the Magnificent - smcgivern
http://raganwald.com/2015/05/08/carnac-the-magnificent.html
======
keithgabryelski
I call these types of questions "stump the chump".

It is the most common major flaw in tech interviews I see and I try to teach
interviewers to avoid these types of questions by having them try out their
questions on their peers and get feedback.

~~~
braythwayt
> try out their questions on their peers and get feedback.

Excellent suggestion, thank you!

------
snowwrestler
There is a famous story of a hiring manager who divided the pile of resumes on
his desk into two piles. "If you want to work for me, you need to be lucky,"
he said, and dropped one of the piles into the trash.

I bring that up because from the perspective of the hiring manager, it might
not matter that interview questions are fair, simple, and clear. The point is
to find a good candidate; as long as you do that, eliminating other good
candidates along the way is acceptable.

Consider it this way: let's say your interview question requires your
candidates to read your mind to some extent, or at least intuit what you mean,
or at least share your assumptions. Isn't it possible that those attributes
would be helpful in a new hire?

~~~
smcgivern
Absolutely. Are they more helpful than the other attributes you're
disregarding in searching for the mind-reader, though? I'd suggest that people
who can communicate clearly and don't put up with being asked to read minds
are desirable candidates.

------
S4M
I haven't interviewed for quite a while, but I might do so pretty soon. What
surprises me in this blog post is not the question itself - I find it quite
reasonable - but the pickiness of the interviewer. If I was asked this, I
suppose that I would come up with some kind of bruteforce, like writing a
function to combine two numbers and an operator (the empty string can be an
operator):

    
    
        function combine(x,operator,y) {
            if(operator === "+") {
                 return x+y;
            }
            if(operator === "-") {
                 return x-y;
            }
            if(operator === "") {
                 return 10*x+y;
            }
            return 0;
        }
    

And then getting the 3^8 possible combinations of 8 operators linking the
number together and picking the ones that give 100 as the final result.

While I am sure this solution is not completely efficient, I would expect it
to show that I can write Javascript. Would that get me rejected for the job?

~~~
braythwayt
I was not saying that the interviewer is picky, only that when asked a
question like this, we don't know if the interviewer is picky, and that is
stressful for the candidate in a way that is sub-optimal for the interview
process.

------
beernutz
Is it common practice to put the summary or "tl;dr" at the end of a long
article? I thought the point of tl;dr was to give an overview or summary
before the long article?

~~~
Rusky
It's common practice to put a summary/conclusion at the end of a long article,
and this one happened to label it with "tl;dr."

------
rheide
You could argue that finding out hidden possible requirements in a high-stress
situation is also part of a developer's job.

~~~
braythwayt
Of course you could. Just as you could argue that wasting time asking a bunch
of questions about hidden requirements for a simple “fizzbuzz” question is
indicative of a candidate that prefers talk to action.

Remember, the _stated_ purpose of the question was to filter non-programmers
from programmers. If the real purpose is to evaluate a candidate’s proficiency
at eliciting hidden requirements, I suggest that there are much better
problems to pose.

For example, a design problem that is closer to the actual company’s domain.

~~~
hyperpape
> If the real purpose is to evaluate a candidate’s proficiency at eliciting
> hidden requirements, I suggest that there are much better problems to pose.

Like, say...how to design a monopoly implementation? :)
[http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/06/my-favourite-
interview-q...](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/06/my-favourite-interview-
question.html)

