
Stop Asking Me Math Puzzles to Figure Out If I Can Code (2013) - juancampa
https://countaleph.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/
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combatentropy
I agree. I've coded for more than a dozen years, and the most advanced math I
ever had to use was modular arithmetic --- which is actually quite simple. I
call it advanced because I went all the way through algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, and calculus, and I never once had a lesson on the modulus. I
learned it on the job out of desperation. As many of you know, it comes up a
few times in certain programming problems. While I find pi intriguing and the
100 Prisoners Problem fun to ponder, I never was into math like some people,
and I dread the day I have one of those kinds of interviews.

In fact my background is in English. I tripped into programming quite against
my will and now love it, and I always thought that all those math nerds who
think programming is most like math never really understood English
Composition, because I see parallels all the time (the kind taught in The
Elements of Style and On Writing Well, which are classics but actually unlike
most writing books). Emma said, "To my surprise, CS wasn't different from math
at all." To my surprise, CS wasn't different from English at all (again,
English Composition, not English Literature).

By the way, I will say that Emma not only is a master of math but also
English. Her article was very well written. As casual as it seems, its
rhythms, word choice, and humor are masterful. It outstrips the attempts of
most bloggers who try to be chummy and funny and who wind up just being
annoying.

Actually what programming most reminds me of is organizing, sort of like
cleaning my room, trying to fit suitcases in a trunk, or filing papers. Which
items are most like each other? How can we fit them more closely together?
What if we rotate this one or repackage that one into a different shape? I
suppose then it is like architecture or engineering, although I've never
formally studied either one.

------
C4stor
I think the key quote here is :

> "Listen, the very last thing I want is to sound ungrateful. At that first
> job, I learned all of those things I listed, and more, because the senior
> engineers patiently sat with me and put up with my stupid questions and
> never got frustrated with me, even when I got frustrated with myself. But it
> took me more than a year."

So, you tell me a company succesfully trained you, fresh out of school, in a
little more than a year ? It seems to me their recruitment process was
actually very good !

Had they pick someone clueless about maths, but good at everything else you
listed, they may have never successfully trained her in years.

Of course, maybe maths wasn't relevant at all for the job, in which case it
probably was a bad process still, but without more information, it looks
correct to me.

------
commandlinefan
> CS theory and problem-solving skills are the important things, the difficult
> things, and if you know them, everything else is easy.

Wow, this is really fascinating to me, because yes, I absolutely thought that
- this blog post is the first time I've ever heard anybody suggest otherwise.
A smart software manager would be working to pair up people like her who are
good at and enjoy algorithmic puzzle solving but not as interested in the code
with people like me who aren't so great at solving riddles but can apply stuff
like a mofo. Instead they insist on trying to save money by finding a one-
size-fits-all solution to every problem and end up losing more than they could
ever save churning through people they see as pawns and expendable resources.

------
avmich
> In a particularly egregious example of this, when I was interviewing for my
> second job out of college, I was asked to come up with an algorithm to
> eventually sink a submarine with unknown (but integral) position and
> velocity that was somewhere on a number line. (Spoiler alert: to solve this
> problem, you need to know how to enumerate the rationals.) Once again, zero
> lines of code.

Once a new employee in a company posted this problem for discussion, claiming
that the wording is intentionally changed to make it unsearchable, and the
year was 2008. So I'm really interested how this wording came here - was the
task popular enough to make it to the Web afterwards or is Emma's knowledge
traceable to that employee through a chain of interested people? Or is there
some other explanation?

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kstenerud
There are problems with evaluating people all around. I had a recruiter flat
out tell me I'm simply unqualified for the position. Had I not been so
passionate about the product and company, I'd have moved on. Instead, I did an
end run around the recruiter and accepted an offer within a couple of weeks.

------
Madmallard
Recruiter, with evidence that better problem solvers on the spot are more
competent: Nope.

~~~
cheez
My hypothesis is that on-the-spot problem solvers are likely good at playing
office politics, which can lead to the appearance of being more competent. I
have never seen a quick thinker be bad at office politics.

~~~
solveit
Clearly you've never been to grad school in pure maths.

~~~
cheez
Grad schools aren't an analogous environment.

