lunarul @ lunarul @lemmy.world

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2

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555

Joined

2 yr. ago

That was definitely not the original point of the captcha. It used to be every site implementing their own version, some better than others, but all were just solving something that should be easy for humans and almost impossible for bots. But then Google got the idea of using it for crowdsourcing to help with digitizing books and they launched reCAPTCHA. This was easy to embed on any web page and served a noble purpose, so it quickly became the de facto captcha over much of the web. Fast forward several years and now we're all providing free work in training AI object recognition, a problem AI is already very good at, which means the images we're being given are increasingly more difficult for humans to interpret.

The ability to conceptually understand what they're doing is exactly what I'm testing for when interviewing. Writing a full program on a whiteboard is definitely not required for that. I can get that from asking them question, observing how they approach the problem, what kind of questions they ask me etc.

I definitely don't want them to do just the bare minimum to survive or to need to ask me for advice at every step (had people who ended up taking more of my time than it would've taken me to do their job myself).

I've never needed to write more than a short snippet of code at a time on a whiteboard, slack channel, code review, etc. in my almost 20 years in the industry. Definitely not to solve a whole problem blindly. In fact I definitely see it as a red flag when a candidate writes a lot of code without ever stopping to execute and test each piece individually. It simply becomes progressively more difficult to debug the more you add to it, that's common sense.

I've definitely done white board coding discussions in practice, e.g., go into a room, write up ideas on the white board (including small snippets of code or pseudo code).

I've done that too back before the remote work era, but using a whiteboard as a visual aid is not the same thing as solving a whole problem on a whiteboard.

I was thinking there must be younger siblings in the back, so he had to travel in front. But now I realize both parents were there, so that means one of the parents is in the back seat...

It does make sense to increase all menu prices in order to pay higher wages, but it's a sleazy dishonest practice to hide that increase from the customers until it's too late.

I personally never had a problem performing well in those tests, I happen to have the skill to compile code in my head, and it is a helpful skill in my job (I've been a software engineer for 19 years now), but it's definitely not a required skill and should not be considered as such.

A company that still does whiteboard interviews one I have no interest in working for. When I interview candidates I want to see how they will perform in their job. Their job will not involve writing code on whiteboards, solving weird logic problems, or knowing how to solve traveling salesman problem off the top of their heads.

Typewriters are also irrelevant today. It was an analogy. I agree that AI can be used in some evaluations, depending what you're evaluating.

I allow and encourage Googling for information when I interview software engineering candidates. I don't consider it "cheating", on the contrary. Being able to unblock themselves is one of the skills they should have. They will be using external help when doing their job, so why should the test be any different.

But that also reminds me now that I actually once had a candidate using generative AI in the coding interview. It did feel like cheating when it was a the level of asking for the full solution, not just help getting unblocked. It didn't help at all though because the candidate didn't even have enough skill to tell the good suggestions from the bad ones or what they needed to iterate on.

I had some teachers ask for handwritten programming exams too (that was more like 20 years ago for me) and it was just as dumb then as it is today. What exactly are they preparing students for? No job will ever require the skill of writing code on paper.

AI is a tool that can indeed be of great benefit when used properly. But using it without comprehending and verifying the source material can be downright dangerous (like those lawyers citing fake cases). The point of the essay/exam is to test comprehension of the material.

Using AI at this point is like using a typewriter in a calligraphy test, or autocorrect in a spelling and grammar test.

Although asking for handwritten essays does nothing to combat use of AI. You can still generate content and then transcribe it by hand.

are often brought over as cheap labor, undercutting local labor

I came to the US on a work visa and my company had to pay thousands of dollars for the visa fee, prove that my salary is in line with local averages, publicly post a job opening for the position I was going to fill, and in general show proof that there are no equally or better qualified local candidates for the job. I don't see how they could have gotten my visa approved if they tried to pay me less.

Huh, interesting. I only get that for 3 or 4.

features that aren't possible through a PWA

That list is getting smaller every day.

https://whatpwacando.today/

Yeah, who needs an installer when you can just ./configure, then ./make and ./make install, just stopping to fetch and build missing dependencies occasionally, upgrade some others, then retry.

Jazz probably

That's me today. I fixed the dishwasher last night for $0

That's almost word for word what I was thinking about low-rise jeans when they started replacing high waisted jeans. And now when high waisted jeans came back I think they look so weird.