[pp13]

You should highlight, recent college graduates. If someone does get hired to your firm, I hope the "real world" problems are just as interesting.

I actually like those type of algorithmic problems you highlighted. I am not sure, what it measures other than the recent graduate knew his/her data structures and read their MIT Algorithms books really well. Very few jobs do require knowing that fundamentals that in depth. Are we writing a Kernel, or a file system? Are we writing a new type of java collection.

The type of real world problems that in the class of the 2 problem solving problems you mentioned seem far in few, unless you writing something new, that really needs to be optimized in some way.

I think this is a real problem with computer science schools. It great to teach the absolute bare essentials. But I think schools should also teach some modern programming and not leave it on the kids to learn on there own.

College grads that know modern frameworks, Node, ROR, they know javascript and ruby really well. They have written some nice web apps. Those are the ones with the best job perspective. They have proven they can do the work.

I can understand if you were interviewing for the core google search team. Their optimization's make the company money.

Remember what Knuth said about optimization.

[aplusbi]

I think the best programmers are ones who can utilize abstractions while at the same time understand what they are abstractions of. For example, someone who knows Django and SQL is probably a better programmer than someone who knows Django but doesn't understand what a relational database is.

While people might not need to write searching and sorting algorithms much any more, understanding the difference between an ordered map and a hash table can be crucial in many common "real world" scenarios.

I also have tried to stress that the answers to my algorithm questions are only part of the criteria in determining whether we hire someone or not. I brought them up because the OP asked specifically about coding questions, not hiring questions.