Interview WTF



  • I have a requirement for a new junior developer so I have just done my third interview. Rather than a full interview 2.0, I took the code sample from http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Strong-Type.aspx (without the article) and presented it to each candidate -

    "A simple test - is there anything wrong with this code, would it work?"

    The code has three really serious issues:
    • 1. val = password assigns, it does not test equivalence
    • 2. the SQL injection attack possibility of the query
    • 3. the unencrypted password in the database

    and a bunch of other less critical problems.

    Of the three really serious problems only one spotted the = instead of ==. The others were pretty much clueless. All three candidates have just done a Masters degree in computing at different British universities, and one had three year's work experience in .NET.

    The other WTF is that I have had 24 applications for this position and these are some of the better ones.

    Of the 24, only one was British; the rest are one Iranian, two African, two Spanish and the rest are Indian, so I can't blame my country (except the masters degree programmes).

    Anyone out there who can code, looking for a job in Surrey?

    Howard



  • SQL injection and practical security is usually learned in the field, not part of CS, which deals mostly with theoretical constructs such as "code correctness". Much as a real programmer would need to understand SQL injection and the evil of cleartext passwords, they're not advanced concepts at all, and any Masters degree teaching it would be a waste of my time. It would be like a cobbler's apprenticeship teaching students to tie their shoes.

    It's less forgiveable for the guy who had 3 years of .Net work.

     

    I'm amused that you're using TDWTF as Bad Examples. :)



  • Wait a second, you have 24 applications and the 21 are from outside the EU and require working visas ?

    Are you running a sweatshop by any chance ?

     



  • @dhromed said:

    SQL injection and practical security is usually learned in the field, not part of CS, which deals mostly with theoretical constructs such as "code correctness".
     

    Do you mean "code correctness proofs"? Because it would be rather disturbing indeed if an experienced "real-world programmer" thought that correctness was a silly academic issue!

     



  • While I can excuse the lack of knowlegde on plaintext database passwords and SQL injection if you've never really worked with a program that extensively uses SQL databases, the = != == error is one of the most common ones in programming 101 and should really be obvious to anyone who calls himself a programmer.



  • the unencrypted password in the database

    I don't see how you reached this conclusion from that code piece. If the password argument is already encrypted somehow, then 'val == password' is... actually, it should be val.equals(password), but you get the idea.

    Anyway, maybe the applicants saw this code and thought it was from your code base, got scared and wanted to end the interview ASAP. TheDailyWTF is a two edged sword!



  • You might need to give them a hint that some of the issues with the code are not syntax errors.  If they still could not figure it out even with a hint then I recommend finding an empty conference room and weep for the future. 

    Addendum: ubersoldat does have a point.  You might want to caveat that the code did not come from your company's code base.  I believe there was a DailyWTF article where the interviewee assumed that it was not and found/told the interviewer all the issues with the code just to find out it was production code the company had.  Needless to say they mutually decided that they did not want to work with each other.

     

    Found it: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Best,-The-TDWTF-Interview,-and-The-Stormout.aspx second one: The TDWTF Interview <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>


  • Right, I've been in plenty of interviews so I get an idea of what my work will be from this "tests". For example:

    Once I went to an interview where they sat me down in front of an Ubuntu PC with NetBeans and told me to develop some code web app to connect to a database with Spring. Great!

    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.



  • @ubersoldat said:

    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.



  • Well, entry-level assignments do separate the wheat* from the completely rotten, black near-liquid chaff.

     

    *) Any wheat, be it shitty or otherwise.



  • @Anketam said:

    You might need to give them a hint that some of the issues with the code are not syntax errors. 

    I'd deliberately leave that hint out to see if they only hunt for syntactical errors and not for engineering/design flaws. That way I'm more likely to gauge the level of experience and capability of the interviewee.



  • I recently filled a position in my department, also UK based.

    We had 27 apply, only four of which were local to the area, twenty were contractors from all over the UK (the ad said they'd be based in our office and where in the UK that is) and 2 from other EU countries and 1 from India.

    And only 2 fulfilled the requirement for having programming experience. One was the Indian. Fortunately the other was a local guy who got the job!



  • @dhromed said:

    Well, entry-level assignments do separate the wheat* from the completely rotten, black near-liquid chaff.

     

    *) Any wheat, be it shitty or otherwise.

    Don't be surprised to end up with ergot.


  • It's no better in the US.  I have interviewed many people claiming to be receiving a Master's Degree in CS, and who supposedly had been programming in Java for at least two years.  Few could explain the difference between a hash table and a tree.  



  • @kc0a said:

    It's no better in the US.  I have interviewed many people claiming to be receiving a Master's Degree in CS, and who supposedly had been programming in Java for at least two years.  Few could explain the difference between a hash table and a tree.  

    The answer is obvious: you cut down a tree to make a hash table.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @kc0a said:

    Few could explain the difference between a hash table and a tree.

    It's a trick question! Hash comes from a shrubbery!



  • @MeesterTurner said:

    We had 27 apply, only four of which were local to the area, twenty were contractors from all over the UK and 2 from other EU countries and 1 from India.

    And only 2 fulfilled the requirement for having programming experience. One was the Indian

     

    +1 twist ending



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    I've worked at one place that did the code on paper, chalkboard, whiteboard, or similar mediums.  At that location, it's because they were (at that time) very security conscious, without having the infrastructure to back it up.  (Not to say they were paranoid: rather, they were kinda boned and knew roughly how boned they were.)  As such, they were unwilling to let a prospective candidate touch a computer on their internal network, but had no other option besides the physical medium.

    That actually wasn't a bad place to work.  According to one of the people I met on that job, they've since fixed their biggest security issues, and now many of their computer interviews which want coding samples will actually let the person use a laptop for that purpose.

    I have, of course, heard of quite a few other places that had such practices, and some of the crazy things that went on at them.  I'd been tempted to walk out when they asked me to write code on the whiteboard, but I'm glad I didn't.  (Note: even if I had decided to drop them over that, I would have at *least* written the code they wanted, so that they'd understand it wasn't because I couldn't handle their request.)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    1. I want to see what they're writing as they're writing it

      2) Interviews take place in rooms without projectors (at my company)

      3) I've yet to come across a candidate who says, "hey can I get a computer?"


  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @dhromed said:

    SQL injection and practical security is usually learned in the field, not part of CS, which deals mostly with theoretical constructs such as "code correctness".

     

    Do you mean "code correctness proofs"? Because it would be rather disturbing indeed if an experienced "real-world programmer" thought that correctness was a silly academic issue!

    I'm pretty sure he means "code correctness proofs that show buggy, exploitable, injectable code to be correct".  I've seen more of those than I would like, by quite a bit.  What I find most frustrating about them is that I've found, in the meager, non-scientifically significant sample I've encountered, a professor who is fond of them tends to learn absolutely nothing if you take code that he's proven correct, and show him how to crack it in six or seven ways.  Well, ok, nothing other than the fact that he doesn't like me.  (I've never had this experience with a woman professor, but I would presume it would probably happen there, too.  I just haven't run into any female CS professors who are showing off their proof of correctness for crappy code when I had the time to try to give some education.)

    I think that's a big part of the problem with our education system today: "teachers" who are not willing/able to learn when they are demonstrably doing it wrong should be dismissed.  Of course, we can only do that if the people in charge are competent enough to recognize someone properly demonstrating that the "teacher" is wrong, and there are sufficient candidate replacement teachers that the school doesn't have a shortage as a result of dismissing said "teacher".

    Actually, I could probably generalize that a bit more - it's not just CS professors, but anyone I've encountered who has gotten a MS or PhD in CS without any time in industry before getting their degree (and if they got an MS in CS, then had a year in industry, then got their PhD in CS, they still count in this category, because of getting the MS in CS without industry experience, even though they got some before their PhD - but my sample size for that is 1) has shown this same inability to learn that what they were taught in school is not completely correct.  I'm not saying those degrees are worthless - but given what gets taught in them, it's important to have some real world experience. too.  It's also possible the issue is more about the type of people who get a technical MS or PhD without getting experience in that field first.  (Note: I do potentially count internships and summer jobs as experience - so we are talking about some fairly special people here.  Of course, an internship where one only made photocopies and coffee would not count - I would like to think that's for obvious reasons.)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    1. I want to see what they're writing as they're writing it

      2) Interviews take place in rooms without projectors (at my company)

      3) I've yet to come across a candidate who says, "hey can I get a computer?"

    I know for myself I don't think the same when putting pen to paper as when working on a computer. It's not testing what I'm actually going to be doing. And as for #1: I would be really uncomfortable with someone looking over my shoulder. I would probably walk out if someone asked me to do that. It's not relevant to the job I'd be doing.



  • @Manos said:

    Wait a second, you have 24 applications and the 21 are from outside the EU and require working visas ?

    Are you running a sweatshop by any chance ?

    No, it's true - almost all the applications are overseas students on Visas. UK students don't do computer science any more it seems

     

     

    mod: added relevant quote, because thread view is for chumps. –dh



  • @ubersoldat said:

    I don't see how you reached this conclusion from that code piece. If the password argument is already encrypted somehow, then 'val == password' is... actually, it should be val.equals(password), but you get the idea.

    I didn't expect them to spot the unencrypted password (it's not conclusive evidence of non-encryption, I agree, but strongly circumstantial).

    My question on the paper with the code in it was "Here is some code I saw on the web...." and asks if they can see anything wrong with it - so they should not have been scared off.

    Howard

     

    mod: added relevant quote, because thread view is for chumps. –dh 



  • @Quango said:

    @Manos said:

    Wait a second, you have 24 applications and the 21 are from outside the EU and require working visas ?

    Are you running a sweatshop by any chance ?

    No, it's true - almost all the applications are overseas students on Visas. UK students don't do computer science any more it seems

    mod: added relevant quote, because thread view is for chumps. –dh

     I have worked in the UK for 5 years and back then I was always the only foreigner. How things have changed...



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    1. I want to see what they're writing as they're writing it

      2) Interviews take place in rooms without projectors (at my company)

      3) I've yet to come across a candidate who says, "hey can I get a computer?"

    Wow, wow! You got my point wrong. It wasn't the paper thing only, it was the experience as a whole: paper-test, string handling, room full of other candidates... it was like being back at college actually.



  • @ubersoldat said:

    You got my point wrong.
     

    No, he got it right. You, however, omitted three-quarters of the information.




  • @tgape said:

    I think that's a big part of the problem with our education system today: "teachers" who are not willing/able to learn when they are demonstrably doing it wrong should be dismissed.  Of course, we can only do that if the people in charge are competent enough to recognize someone properly demonstrating that the "teacher" is wrong, and there are sufficient candidate replacement teachers that the school doesn't have a shortage as a result of dismissing said "teacher".

    That. There are many incompetent teachers out there that treat challenges to their knowledge as challenges to their authority, and stubbornly refusing to engage with (or listen to) the challenger when they're proven to be in the wrong undermines them terribly.

    I found - in my time as a former teacher - that engaging the heckler and requesting that they expand upon their point was not only conducive to classroom control (avoided conflict arising and diffused the situation) but encouraged more free thinking. I began to create a culture where people were free to challenge ideas; they needed to be in a position to justify their proposals, and in discussing the context of the challenge we would all gain from it, whether or not the challenge was valid. Treating scholars as simply that: those who wanted to stimulate and share information made for much better, more rounded classes. Treating them as mindless vegetables ready to soak up announced drivel did nobody any favours.

    (it's a technique I still employ on my lecture circuit)

    @tgape said:

    Actually, I could probably generalize that a bit more -

    My experiences bear that out, too.

    There was a time in the UK (and possibly still is) where many organisations didn't employ CS graduates, but rather graduates from a secondary discipline (eg: Physics, Chemistry etc) who had exposure to IT but not as a major subject. These left with a culture that IT was simply a tool, a means to an end, and were willing to learn software engineering, programming, development etc. CS grads tended to leave with a perfect-perfect know-all attitude and could not be told that they were actually wrong, or that the knowledge they received upon their course was inappropriate for the business world (or even reality, full stop) - their pieces of paper proudly told the world that they were cutting-edge and immediately commanded a high starting salary for the privilege of hiring an expert in that field.

    And as for "consultants"... that's a whole new level of Dunning-Kruger, personified.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.
    1. I want to see what they're writing as they're writing it

      2) Interviews take place in rooms without projectors (at my company)

      3) I've yet to come across a candidate who says, "hey can I get a computer?"

    I do design work and various diagrams with whiteboards, pen/paper, etc.

    When it comes to coding, I use the keyboard (and mouse, obv).

    I've learned to spend a great deal of time on the first bit before starting the second part, and if I'm in a rush to do the second bit, I udually end up having to stop and go back to the first part.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Cassidy said:

    @tgape said:

    I think that's a big part of the problem with our education system today: "teachers" who are not willing/able to learn when they are demonstrably doing it wrong should be dismissed.  Of course, we can only do that if the people in charge are competent enough to recognize someone properly demonstrating that the "teacher" is wrong, and there are sufficient candidate replacement teachers that the school doesn't have a shortage as a result of dismissing said "teacher".

    That. There are many incompetent teachers out there that treat challenges to their knowledge as challenges to their authority, and stubbornly refusing to engage with (or listen to) the challenger when they're proven to be in the wrong undermines them terribly.

    Cue the Adam Hilliker story...



  • @Cassidy said:

    I found
     

    This.



  • @tgape said:

    they were unwilling to let a prospective candidate touch a computer on their internal network, but had no other option besides the physical medium.
     

    Or, y'know, disconnect the interview machine from the network for the duration of the test.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Rootbeer said:

    @tgape said:
    they were unwilling to let a prospective candidate touch a computer on their internal network, but had no other option besides the physical medium.

    Or, y'know, disconnect the interview machine from the network for the duration of the test.

    The network comment is probably misleading. They probably don't want you touching any of their machines, either, regardless of network connectivity. I've seen plenty of places like that.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Cassidy said:

    I found
     

    This.

    SILENCE AT THE BACK WHEN I'M TALKING, BOY!




  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    I had to write whiteboard code four years ago during my last interview. It was a pretty simple function showing how to insert an item in sorted order into an already-sorted linked list. It's a nice little problem because it had an edge case that needs to be accounted for and it's short enough to not flow off the whiteboard.

    After I was hired I ended up as a peer of the guy who gave me that interview question. I asked him why he did it, and he said that first, it weeds out the candidates who are straight up lying about being able to program (apparently it's not uncommon). Second, it is valuable to see their reactions. When presented with uncomfortable constraints, does the candidate become upset? Hostile? Does he turn around and call you a moron?

    I asked him how many "points" he gave based on the CORRECTNESS of the code written by the candidate. He said it was the least important part of the evaluation. He then brought out a photograph of what I had written on the whiteboard the day I interviewed (scary that he still had this) and pointed out that my implementation in fact had a bug (it wasn't stable, i.e. it inserted new items before old items, not after them, which was a stipulation of the question). He said he had not noticed my mistake until after they'd hired me, and even if he had noticed it at the time it wouldn't have made any difference in his evaluation.



  • @Quango said:

    @Manos said:

    Wait a second, you have 24 applications and the 21 are from outside the EU and require working visas ?

    Are you running a sweatshop by any chance ?

    No, it's true - almost all the applications are overseas students on Visas. UK students don't do computer science any more it seems

     

     

    mod: added relevant quote, because thread view is for chumps. –dh

    I was in college in the late 1990s. This was when "The Matrix" was big, and when all sorts of no-name web-based startup companies had huge market values. Worldcomm and Accenture were hiring our grads at salaries that would still look damn good to today's fresh CS grads. There was a bit of a boom in CS majors at that point, and I remember asking myself if the whole thing was just a fad that I should avoid. This seems ironic in retrospect... real CS grads are rare as hell, and CS grads that know what they're doing from a practical standpoint are even rarer.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

    1. I want to see what they're writing as they're writing it

      2) Interviews take place in rooms without projectors (at my company)

      3) I've yet to come across a candidate who says, "hey can I get a computer?"
    Anyone who complains about being asked to write some code on paper or whiteboard has never bothered to actually thinik about all the logistics involved in setting up a computer for such a task.  On the surface it sounds simple, but if you actually walk through all the steps, there's actually quite a bit involved for something that you may only do occasionally.  Sure, it can be done, and many companies do it, but there's nothing wrong with just using paper.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Anyone who complains about being asked to write some code on paper or whiteboard has never bothered to actually thinik about all the logistics involved in setting up a computer for such a task.  On the surface it sounds simple, but if you actually walk through all the steps, there's actually quite a bit involved for something that you may only do occasionally.  Sure, it can be done, and many companies do it, but there's nothing wrong with just using paper.
     

    Write on paper?  With what, a quill?  Next they'll be wanting us to write it in cursive, for cryin' out loud.  What are we, cavemen?



  • @smxlong said:

    Second, it is valuable to see their reactions. When presented with uncomfortable constraints, does the candidate become upset? Hostile? Does he turn around and call you a moron?

    I asked him how many "points" he gave based on the CORRECTNESS of the code written by the candidate. He said it was the least important part of the evaluation. He then brought out a photograph of what I had written on the whiteboard the day I interviewed (scary that he still had this) and pointed out that my implementation in fact had a bug (it wasn't stable, i.e. it inserted new items before old items, not after them, which was a stipulation of the question). He said he had not noticed my mistake until after they'd hired me, and even if he had noticed it at the time it wouldn't have made any difference in his evaluation.

     

    Sounds like you have someone with their head screwed on properly, there.

    We've played devil's advocate in interviews to see the reaction of the interviewee (can they cope under pressure when speaking in public) but we're also looking outside of correctness. Often an interview is to gauge their behaviour, capabilities and personality rather than code correctness on the day - anyone can make a bug, but it sounds like that interview was to see if you would "fit".

    nb: if this was your last interview.. are you still working at that place, with that interviewer?

    Footnote: during my interview, I was taken around the company to press the flesh with various sales/marketing/admin people whilst awaiting availability of the next interviewer. I didn't find out until later that all those I met were canvassed "could they work with that bloke?" Their opinion mattered; if someone flagged up a concern, I would have been rejected.

    @El_Heffe said:

    Anyone who complains about being asked to write some code on paper or whiteboard has never bothered to actually thinik about all the logistics involved in setting up a computer for such a task.  On the surface it sounds simple, but if you actually walk through all the steps, there's actually quite a bit involved for something that you may only do occasionally.  Sure, it can be done, and many companies do it, but there's nothing wrong with just using paper.

    I think it would be a very similar process as setting up a new machine for a new starter, which should have an established process.

    Hell, it should be easier because that machine would probably be segregated or sandboxed away from the live net so some account creation steps could be dropped.

    And if it's something I do very infrequently but do more than once, I would possibly consider using some disk-imaging (or even virtualising) technology after the first time to reduce the workload of "quite a bit involved" to some very simple steps, ensuring rapid rollout with very little effort required.[1]

    Or I could just ignore all modern methods and fall back to "it takes too much effort, just use pencil and paper".

    [1] which I have done - built a laptop with Win98+Powerpoint, dumped several presentations into "My Documents" and configured the browser with several useful bookmarks to go out through a separate proxy, then imaged the disk off to a backup. Any travelling sales droid/visitor could grab it, and I'd re-image once it returned so it was ready to go for the next time.


  • BINNED

    @Quango said:

    The code has three really serious issues:

    • 1. val = password assigns, it does not test equivalence

     

    Is that even legal syntax in Java?
    I know it's allowed in C++ (your compiler might spit out a warning, though) but I thought Java wouldn't allow such things.

     



  • @topspin said:

    @Quango said:

    The code has three really serious issues:

    • 1. val = password assigns, it does not test equivalence

     

    Is that even legal syntax in Java?
    I know it's allowed in C++ (your compiler might spit out a warning, though) but I thought Java wouldn't allow such things.

    Boolean passwords - it's the new thing! Either the password is correct or it isn't, so why bother with the whole mess of requiring six to ten characters and two numbers and one and a half special characters - just use TRUE as your password, and make the login form a checkbox!



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Anyone who complains about being asked to write some code on paper or whiteboard has never bothered to actually thinik about all the logistics involved in setting up a computer for such a task.  On the surface it sounds simple, but if you actually walk through all the steps, there's actually quite a bit involved for something that you may only do occasionally.  Sure, it can be done, and many companies do it, but there's nothing wrong with just using paper.

    Why set up a dedicated computer? Don't you have a variety of "test machines" or the like laying around? You just need Notepad++ installed. It's not like the goal is to build an entire project, it's just to get some code up on the screen..



  • @topspin said:

    Is that even legal syntax in Java?

    No.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Don't you have a variety of "test machines"
     

    Oh, you mean our development webserver?

    Sure boss.



  • @dhromed said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Don't you have a variety of "test machines"
     

    Oh, you mean our development webserver?

    Sure boss.

    No, like client testing environments. At most jobs we've had a couple of Windows machines and at least one Mac for testing.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @ubersoldat said:
    On another occasion I went and they gave me a piece of paper, a pen and asked me to write some string handling code... I excused my self and left.

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.

     Computer time is expensive and limited. All program code sould be witten on paper, and then "run" manually. - Oh wait - is it not the 1960's any more????



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    Computer time is expensive and limited. All program code sould be witten on paper, and then "run" manually.
     

    What's this writing thing you speak of? They can hole their own punchcards like everyone else!

    Do these young upstarts just think they can write it and someone else will do the hole-work for them? Eh? EH?

    Honestly, some people...



  • @Cassidy said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Computer time is expensive and limited. All program code sould be witten on paper, and then "run" manually.
     

    What's this writing thing you speak of? They can hole their own punchcards like everyone else!

    Do these young upstarts just think they can write it and someone else will do the hole-work for them? Eh? EH?

    Honestly, some people...

    True... I spend a good amount of time punching paper tape (much more prevelant on the "mini" (room sized) computers I worked with 40 years ago than punched card)...often making minor correction with a manual punch, scissors and tape....



  • @Cassidy said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Computer time is expensive and limited. All program code sould be witten on paper, and then "run" manually.
     

    What's this writing thing you speak of? They can hole their own punchcards like everyone else!

    Do these young upstarts just think they can write it and someone else will do the hole-work for them? Eh? EH?

    Honestly, some people...

    HEY LOOK this extraordinarily unfunny joke again! What is this, the third, fourth time this month?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Yeah, what the fuck is up with the code-on-paper thing?? I've definitely encountered it in interviews before and I've always wondered how the leap in reasoning was made that having me write code on paper or whiteboard somehow makes sense.
    But I often write Haskell codes on paper by hand..........



  • @da Doctah said:

    Write on paper?  With what, a quill?  Next they'll be wanting us to write it in cursive, for cryin' out loud

    This brings me back, when I was young my teachers told me that I would not be able to do anything useful in the future because my handwriting sucks

     @TheCPUWizard said:

    Computer time is expensive and limited. All program code sould be witten on paper, and then "run" manually. - Oh wait - is it not the 1960's any more

    Remember when we had to wear funny clothes to get near a computer?


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