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Admin
"13 per day on average
Sounds about right for a city of 500k"
I've just checked - the actual answer is 8 per day - pretty damn close!
Admin
Oh that's ok, I believe Steve X went on to become head of Microsoft.
Admin
Thomas B. had easily the best and most correct reponse to the nitwit interview process (NIP) that I have seen in years.
Admin
shift happens.
Admin
Alas, the question was how many were born every MINUTE, not every day ... so ... ah ...
Anyway, it was a very nice estimate.
Admin
The first guy was spot on. Not only was that an outfit of junior achievers who clearly wasn't competent enough to be able to tell if he was competent or not, they wanted him to fill out an asinine written test and didn't even manage to attach the test!
The fail here is completely on the side of the recruiting company.
I have to laugh at these companies who are offering the programming equivalent of a "fry cook opportunity" and think that engineers should jump thru hoops and answer asinine questions.
If you're any good, it becomes immediately obvious when you're dealing with a company that is being run by idiots. For me, the first clue is usually wanting to do a phone interview. If you can't tell from my resume that you want to bring me in, either I've targeted my search very wrong, or you're just not qualified to determine if I'm qualified.
I'm not arrogant, though and so I submit to phone interviews- and more often than not, my expectations are confirmed: They're just throwing interviews at people and are going to hire the one who makes it thru the battery without confusing any of their junior programmer interviewers. They have no idea how to tell if someone is competent or not... because they themselves are incompetent.
Never do a technical interview over the phone. Get a sense of personality, fine. Have a chat, fine. Say "have you ever worked with frobozz extractors", fine. But never "if your frobozz extractor is on the fritz, which widget do you twiddle?"
I stopped putting my livelihood in the hands of other people years ago because I got tired of dealing with this crap. I've done much better starting my own business... but back when I was willing to work for others, it was astounding how clueless recruiters and most companies were, and how arrogant they treated recruits.
Here this guy is arrogantly asking him to do something very pedestrian, and you're going "WTF" when he calls you on it? That's the very definition of being so incompetent that you're unqualified to judge competence.
Submitting it to WTF just shows you're an idiot.
Admin
It absolutely works! The amazing thing is, you don't even realize you've been discovered for being a jackass, and then you submit it to TDWTF!
The hilarious thing is you're presuming the person applying for the job has no standards, no self respect, and is desperate.
So much of the interviewing process is conducted by people who are so arrogant-- such jackasses-- that they will waste the candidates time because they presume candidates are desperate to work for them.
This letter is proof that there are candidates with self esteem. It being submitted to TDWTF is proof that even when it is pointed out to them, jackasses never realize that they are jackasses.
Admin
There're some headhunter agencies that often send both of us job offers... Both of us the SAME job offers, even though we got completely different skillsets. Hell, I'm not even looking for another job. We both mark it as spam each and every time, cause... well... it is.
Headhunters are like a bad blowjob. They latch on and no matter how much you tug and pull to get free, they won't let go!
Admin
Guy was about 24 years old, said he's had 5 years of experience. He worked at a company I worked at several years earlier, apparently before AND after I worked there, but only one of both. I still don't fully understand what he means! He also finished a college degree that takes 4 years. So in total, after finishing highschool and all that, he'd be around 28 years old, instead of 24.
He also claimed to have made his own CMS in .NET, that performance was his key interest. Why oh why does that CMS put every single site made in it on the same hosting, same DB and everything?
When he arrived, he actually refused to write any code. He claimed he should just be able to download everything online and do a couple of clicks to set everything up. I HAD to teach him how to use the APIs and tools we use, so I tried to have him make a very simple contact form. I even gave him example code of which he just had to change some variable names AND actually opened the page with the most important function call's documentation. At the evening, he still didn't have his contact form. He didn't even know -- even though the documentation clearly stated so -- that that function call had a return value!
Instead of actually doing his job and program, he wasted my time trying to start endless, useless discussions. Stuff like setting text in contents in bold or italic is a designer's task, not a content manager's task (I'm not kidding! He actually claimed that!). He also kept spewing bullshit like "his ambition" being becoming a web developer.
And all the while, the boss there kept going on about what a clever guy that is...
Admin
Actually the true WTF was that a person with 20 years of experience is getting a run around and then an incompetent person doesn't even know how to attach the test to the e-mail.
If people in HR do not know how to spot the good candidate, they should fire themselves.
Admin
If I were Robin, I'd respond. Enthusiastically.
Admin
After going through many interviews with junior people who have no idea how to interview, much less judge talent, I'm very much in Thomas B's side. The posting is even funnier because the maroon James somehow thinks he's shown Thomnas up by posting this. In fact, he's showing what a total incompetent he is: he has no idea he's been served and pwned by Thomas B.
Work with you ANY day, Thomas.
Admin
Aren't you precious and precocious, my little C++ stud muffin.
Admin
I think that many people assumed that if someone is applying for a job, he must be currently unemployed. Maybe he was just looking for a better job. There is no good reason to ask trivial questions when you are looking for someone with 10+ years experience. The liars may be able to answer them and the qualified ones will get offended.
Still much less common than employers thinking and behaving like they are doing a favor to the emloyee and employers underpaying and treating their employees like sh*t and then crying they can't find enough qualified workers.
Admin
If it doesn't get better, then ur doin it rong. I'm primarily a server-side developer, but I'm constantly amazed at the hate on JavaScript. When you use it properly, it's a really nice language. If it's not feeling really nice, sharpen the saw by learning more about the language. (And use CoffeeScript if you can -- the standard syntax is not appropriate to the structure of the language.)
Admin
LMAO re 'Big Picture Thinker'. You guys had your arses handed to you and are so ignorant that you didn't even realize it. I think this is the first self-pwntage I've seen on TDWTF!
Admin
Array, every time.
If the array is sorted, you can use binary search for a start as you have random access.
But let's assume it is not sorted, so the complexity of the lookup is the same as the list. However traversing an array is far more efficient than traversing a list, as you are going to get fewer page faults. This would be the case whether you use pointer arithmetic (with C or C++ as the language) or index arithmetic. Pointer arithmetic is likely to be slightly more efficient.
A linked list is more efficient than an array on the whole in only one operation, that being insertion and deletion in the middle. If you want to maintain a sorted collection, you would be better off using a binary tree (which is not a linked list). The other place where a linked list can be more efficient is when you have to allocate more memory, although in this case a double-ended queue, which is essentially usually implemented in a "paged" manner, is more efficient.
In C++, a vector must be contiguous. In Java or C#, the implementation is on a virtual machine so an array or vector does not have to actually be contiguous, the standard is just that random access is constant time. You get that too with a std::deque underlying implementation.
Admin
Actually, I think you do. Getting a generic job offer letter like that would be beyond insulting.
Admin
that third one made me think of that gag in the Diskworld books: the Watchmen's Oath read, "I,[name of applicant] do solemnly swear by [deity of choice]...but what they actually SAID was "i comma square bracket name of applicant square bracket do solemnly swear by square bracket deity of choice square bracket"...