Mutinix's comments

> Good CS fundamentals are important

Yes they are. Except, these interviews aren't testing for that. Finding the maximum sum subarray isn't testing for any fundamental.

> Just because someone wrote an impressive framework or library doesn't mean given a complex problem outside of their known domain

Why are you even hiring them for something that's not their expertise? Seriously, that's literally the whole point of the interview. I don't think Max Howell was trying to get in to the DeepMind team.

Calling these just some other web framework or package management tools is doing them an incredible disservice. Twitter used Rails. Airbnb uses Rails. If Airbnb hired DHH, it would be Airbnb's fault if they made him tune hyperparameters of some ML model rather than see how their web performance could be improved.

Honestly, at this point I'm convinced I could get HN to talk poorly about John Carmack's programming skills.

> why would I want to hire you over someone who has seen a computer before?

Because, you know, they invented Ruby on Rails and Homebrew? Incredible, really. You were so adamant on being hostile that you managed to put yourself over Max Howell and DHH in a couple of sentences. These people have made valuable contributions to the tech industry as it stands today. This is a fact and not an opinion. They invented Homebrew and Ruby on Rails.

Good job, you solved the problems and are more likely to be hired by Google than Max Howell. Except he created the most popular package manager in OSX history and companies still can't see that.

Maybe he's being hyperbolic, maybe not. But that's entirely besides the point.

I'm absolutely certain that there are many, many engineers who failed interviews because they couldn't write a zig-zag string and could yet come up with good solutions to problems at a real company.

> what do you expect a programmer who can't reinvent a half-decent bubble sort to do

But interviews aren't testing for that. The guy who invented Homebrew was judged by a Google engineer to be not good enough. Heck, I bet the engineer interviewing him probably had his/her entire dev machine setup via Homebrew.

DHH invented Ruby on Rails, which was used at Twitter for what, 4+ years? And yet if he anonymously gave an interview at Twitter they would probably reject him because he can't find a cycle in a linked list in 30 minutes.

> The interview is to convince the other person that you can think logically about programs.

It's supposed to be about that. The modern CS interview is, however, absolutely not about that. It's whether or not you've grinded through CtCI enough to be able to answer something taken from a vast pool of useless questions.

Tell me, is the Homebrew guy just really not good enough? Do you really think he does not know how to think about programs logically?

It's unfortunate, but all the companies are doing this.

Here's what a Google lead said in a tweet:

> Hello, my name is Tim. I'm a lead at Google with over 30 years coding experience and I need to look up how to get length of a python string.

DHH:

> Hello, my name is David. I would fail to write bubble sort on a whiteboard. I look code up on the internet all the time. I don't do riddles.

Max Howell:

> Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.

And yet, everyone is asking these questions about print a string in zigzag fashion or something silly like that.

Engineers are gaming the system because the system is garbage. None of us are looking forward to waking up and solving HackerRank, LeetCode and CtCI problems till the joy of programming leaves our bodies.

Bezos is one of the investors.

BuzzFeed News is very good. The money they make from monetizing their meme-y content helps with their journalism.

I chuckled when I read this but then I actually went and looked it up. What do you know, it is there!

Rocky IV - https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/rocky-iv/id278077103

Would it be possible for you to send me an invite? This is the first time I've come across this site, but it seems interesting. I'm a developer, but I've liked the discussions I've read here so far. Thank you!

Have there been many cases of this? I mean, I know people who can't wear 3D glasses for long, people who can't stay in front of a computer screen for very long and so on. So is it a problem with the technology?

On an unrelated note: Does anybody know when Glass will be available in other countries? I've been interested in obtaining a pair for a while but I'm not sure how to go about it.

Thanks for the reply! I was just curious, so apologies if I sounded rude there.

Hi Thomas, can you provide me with your email so I can get in touch with you? I'm interested in applying as an intern but I have some questions. Thanks!

I came across your site a couple of weeks ago. Just wanted to know if you guys have plans on expanding to other countries any time soon or accepting remote freelancers?

I signed up on the website last month and haven't received a reply either. It would be good to know if it's a yes, a no or a maybe.

"though in this case, over a tweet, you're probably right"

Well, maybe not: https://twitter.com/zeeg/status/294305445521268736

You can take the course for free, but you won't get credit for it. From the Udacity blog:

"Living up to our promise to always provide a free path to high-quality education, we are also offering these courses free of charge as conventional MOOCs, but this path will not include instructor access, additional support services, or a path to college credit."

Blogpost: http://blog.udacity.com/2013/01/sebastian-thrun-udacity-anno...

I'm genuinely curious to know when and where the trend of naming companies or products by removing the vowels or random letters from a word started from. I've seen it in a number of places. Why? Is it because if they use the full word, it becomes too general and difficult to associate?

From my understanding of the comment, he wasn't blaming the customer. Rather, he's trying to say that people shouldn't rush to buy the revision A (or version 1 or 1st generation or whatever) of an Apple product. Instead, wait for the initial (and what are now expected) flaws to be fixed and then buy them. However, I think this is a problem that is likely to happen with any company, not just Apple.

All Coursera courses are deadline based. Some of the courses remove their material at the end of the course. Others, such as the database one, are later opened up as self-study but do not offer a certificate of completion.

In the case of edX, MIT's 6.00x course is strictly deadline based. CS50x allows you to take the course at your own pace as long as you finish everything before the 13th of April, 2013.

But those aren't the ones you're looking for. Udacity meets all your requirements. They have open enrollment, meaning you can join in at any time. Furthermore, they have no deadlines. As long as you complete all the problem sets and give the final exam, you get a certificate.

Here are some Udacity courses that might interest you:

Statistics 101 - http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/st101 - Taught by Sebastian Thrun

CS271 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs271 - Taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig

CS373 Artificial Intelligence for Robotics - http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs373 - Taught by Sebastian Thrun

Hope that helps.

Edit: There's CS188.1x by Berkeley on edX - https://www.edx.org/courses/BerkeleyX/CS188.1x/2012_Fall/abo...

It's deadline based, but I don't know whether they will remove their material at the end of the course or not.

Right, maybe he doesn't know what everyone wants. But shouldn't the users decide that for themselves? Why put so many restrictions to prevent users from installing 3rd party applications?

I have a similar concern with this. It's too easy for a scammer to just walk away with an object. Invest a small amount, run away with an object of far greater value.