
Beware of HackerRank - edward
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beware-hackerrank-richard-linnell
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as9as87df
If you timeout on a significant number of questions, the code you wrote is not
a few micro optimizations away from succeeding. The entire point is not to
write the easy slow solution that is hundreds of thousands of times slower for
large input sizes. This is much easier than getting the best solution, and
hence less credit is given. I'm sorry that the instructions were not clear.

I agree with the author on some cases; Frequently, sites like hackerrank have
a specific case that causes Java Arrays.sort() to go O(n^2) and time out.
Those feel dumb; there are many real life situations where quicksort is fast
on average and well worth using.

As for other things that hackerrank doesn't test, I would say you should use
hackerrank to screen applicants vs as an end-all-be-all.

~~~
EvanPlaice
I find that many of the problems require 'guessing the question' rather than
just an optimized solution.

The problem will be poorly defined, missing constraints, have useless test
cases. Instead the 'secret' to answering many questions requires buying test
cases, etc.

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Don't get me wrong, it's fun for some occasional practice.

I just don't see much utility in terms of solving 'real world' problems.
Unless a company has a specific need for micro-optimizing their data
processing.

In practical terms, it's usually better to use 3rd party tools that are battle
tested, stable, well-tested, and highly optimized. The best code, is the code
you don't have to write yourself.

Developers who would rather roll their own solution and rely on naive, yet,
well known solutions to common CS problems may do more harm than good.
Especially, in a time/resource constrained environment.

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Keloo
HackerRank is a great place for training, and is very good for interview. Imho
it's better than using a google doc. Anyway they organize a lot of contests,
and saying "Beware of HackerRank" is not correct, it should rather be "I
participated one time on HackerRank and I didn't like it".

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journeeman
HackerRank can be a very good way to screen developers before interviews. The
author and most people in the comments nearly say, "Algorithms are useless.
Writing efficient algorithms?! Who needs that?" :O

Some of the complaints are that HackerRank doesn't test things like team work.
Of course, it doesn't! It's a good tool to screen developers. Things like team
work, creativity and domain knowledge can only be tested in interviews.

I am not saying HackerRank has no issues but, discounting the importance of
algorithmic problem-solving is very unwise, imo.

