skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah, I've seen these. I had one that involved essentially creating a front end app to retrieve data from a 3rd party api, parse the data, and display it on an html page with interactive controls to let the user filter the data.

So, an HTML/CSS/Javascript test proving that you know how to make an api request, play with data, and set up event handlers.

Which is fine, I suppose, except it was with a 2 hour limit and you had to code everything via a web interface (hackerrank maybe?).

I found it super annoying to work outside of my editing environment without any of the linting tools that I'm use to working with and without even source control to record good commits to jump back to if things went wrong.

The task itself was not particularly hard, but I had to work very fast, didn't finish the last filtering options, and had no time for design -- everything was default html with a few primary colors thrown in here and there.

I don't mind a time-limited coding challenge, but not letting me use the tools I use every single time I code (and would use if I were hired to work there) was very frustrating.
I don't mind to do any code test a company requires, but I expect the same commitment on their side. They are looking for candidates and don't want to waste time, but if I am looking for companies I don't want to waste time either.

Usually they ask for a test to asses my skills, but if I am already in the industry I have similar projects I did in my free time that we can use to discuss. I dislike to repeat the same test other candidates have already done if there isn't a good reason. Asses my skill by fulfilling your expectations with your test is not the way go in my opinion. If you are looking for talent to bring new skills to your team, definitely you cannot get them if you are looking for the skills you know. It is better to have an open conversation about something the candidate has done that have some impact.
I spent a weekend working on one of these interview projects only to find the company didn't like the Apple libraries I selected to use. They needed someone with very specific knowledge but failed to list that as part of the project requirements. The result? No job offer, my time wasted and I have a very poor opinion of both the company and recruiter to this day. if you're going to do an interview project, make sure you ask lots of questions up front before investing your time.
We describe our plans for Gitter / Mattermost in this blog post: https://about.gitlab.com/2017/03/15/gitter-acquisition/

We intend to keep both around as they serve different purposes :)
I really love this comment on finding a job at a startup by patio11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11118880

So much so that the comment and surrounding discussion is much more valuable than the actual article it's on! Has helped me and many people I know interview at phenomenal companies.
This sounds like a good startup idea: A certification agency where they put you through the works, measuring your ability to write code, solve various challenges, complete complex projects, etc. Then they can issue a certificate to those that pass their examinations.

Maybe in addition, they can offer training in various topics, include periodic assignments during those training periods, then have several days of monster examinations at the end of it. After which, you then finally get this certification. Of course, if this is done properly, it may take about 4 - 6 years of full time work to get through all the training and examination sessions.
There is no political benefit to open-ness. If the information is used to kill your country's citizens, the politicians who allowed it's release will have their careers ended. It doesn't matter that you have a right to know, or that incidents will happen regardless, or that flying would still be safer than 40 years ago if a dozen planes blew up.
Ironic that the "hub for open-source projects" could become a walled garden if the latter happens.
This one about base cases in recursion is good too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14396104.
Third-World Countries Use Outdated Browsers and Operating Systems
Those of us on Java community are pleased with the work done on JavaFX, Graal, SubstractVM, JRuby, Nashorn, research on eventually add value types and improvements to generics on the JVM and support for AOT compilation.

So far, Oracle has managed to push for more Java improvements than Sun was doing at the end of its history.

And those devs on OpenJDK, guess who pays the majority of the salaries?

Kotlin wouldn't ever been born without Java in first place, nor JetBrains would have a business.
Curious: Why do you use JS for such things? Seems like a job better suited for a workhorse like Java or C#. It would be much easier and I think C# or Java devs would find it easier by virtue of that being a typical back end app that they would have developed before.
Really? Because one fantastically productive team I was once on implemented this practice by eating lunch together most of the time. I have never seen a more effective way of keeping everyone up to date and synced. Sure, they mostly talked about movies, TV, or WTFever, but whenever something critical was in play, it was all about work.

And of course, the manager of that team has not been promoted in over 1.5 decades.
You're dismissing the idea of (1) proving the "obvious" solution or disproving it via data, and you're ignoring the "how". "There are errors" doesn't say where they are errors, and how those errors translate into behavior. If the hypothesis in the source article is help up by more data, that is actually a huge deal, not just confirming something we already knew.
What if it's a coding challenge that is purposely timeboxed to 4-6 hours?

At my previous job, we asked applicants to write a piece of software that would model the org chart for any given employee, enumerating their hierarchical relationships as well as their peer relationships. We may have thrown in an additional complexity or two, but we also removed a lot of requirements (no i/o or database, no user interface; we only sought application logic). Candidates were required to solve the problem in the language of their choice, spending between 4-6 hours on the exercise. The instructions were otherwise intentionally ambiguous.

By specifically calling out an amount of time, and requesting that candidates not spend more or less time, we drew conclusions about:

* Candidate's ability to derive features from imperfect 'business requirements'

* Ability to know when something is 'done' given time restrictions

* Understanding/handling of implied but not explicit edge cases

* Creative thinking

* Tendency for writing testable code

As one can imagine, this weeds out lots of individuals who exhibit tendencies deemed "undesirable" for this role. Scope creep, missed requirements, untestable code, code that doesn't actually work, solutions written in unsuitable languages (Django? Really?) and the list goes on. You'd be amazed what people return when asked to perform a 4-6 hour coding exercise.
I'm a Community Advocate at GitLab, what features are you missing from GitLab issues that prevented you from switching?
Read this paper as well https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit... -- the researchers who wrote it obtained (on the surplus market) the same model of backscatter X-ray body scanner that was deployed in US airports and proceeded to evaluate and validate various schemes for undetectable concealment of firearms, knives, and explosives. Other research was done, including a software implant that would selectively strip indications of contraband from the image (when a specific signal pattern was in the image), and a firmware implant that would disable all interlocks and deliver an elevated radiation dose. If it is possible for a few university researchers to obtain this sort of security scanner without resorting to crimes, it is folly to assume that actual adversaries cannot.

We need better methods for detecting energetic materials (and not just suspicious shapes) in luggage (detecting it concealed inside humans is harder and would require transmission x-ray which is not currently acceptable for airport security screening) that don't crumble when the adversary has unlimited access to the security scanner to test concealment methods.

Concealing knives is kinda easier than concealing energetic materials -- it is, for example, possible to machine a blade that fits perfectly inside a blunt, innocuous "sheath" so precisely (hi, wire EDM) that they appear as a single piece of metal. However, this is not so much of an issue nowadays, as no amount of threatening or stabbing with a knife will make a pilot open the cockpit door.
The linked Telegraph article is a bit more breathless (and meretricious) than the actual PLOS article which doesn't make the same bold claims.

Then again, actually linking to the science paper is an improvement over typical Telegraph practice so kudos to them for that, at least.
As some other commenters mention, and I feel the same way: if a company asks you to do this, they're asking for too much and I think it's fair to tell them that that is an unacceptable amount of work for an interview. I can kind of see this as fair only if you are going in as a more experienced dev but with no work examples, but in that case, it's simple enough to contact references to verify previous work and positions. The only reason I would do this during an interview is if they paid me for my time, essentially treating me as a contractor for some period of time, and the time frame was large enough if I was currently working. If a company asked for this without offering to pay, I would decline the interview.

One additional thing to consider is that if you do work like this for an interview, you should explicitly request to keep the copyright to the work in case they don't give you the job, so you can showcase to other prospective employers. A simple way to do this would be to request them to review it on Github or Gitlab.
Whilst I appreciate the tongue in cheek nature of this post, if merely having a degree was the answer, these types of application would not exist.
Take home projects strike me as an overcorrection for the perceived problems with whiteboard interviews. Drawing from a recent sample of interviews, companies that ask for them still seem to be in the minority.

I hope this remains the case, as 1) they are an enormous time suck for the applicant, and 2) demonstrate abilities that a qualified applicant could become proficient at quickly. Qualification for a position requiring these abilities can be assessed in a way that is not so one-sided against the applicant.

Related: https://alwaystrending.io/articles/tech-interview-torture-ch...
Certainly doable but this should not be done.
As a related article mentions, if you use any Facebook-connected application in the 14-day working-really-hard-on-that-deleting-thing period, then Facebook cancels the account deletion process.

Given that Facebook owns WhatsApp, you're likely to face the same problems down the road, if they aren't already doing those things the article has a problem with.

...

Yeah, so here's a blurb from the WhatsApp ToS:

Third-Party Services. When you use third-party services that are integrated with our Services, they may receive information about what you share with them. For example, if you use a data backup service integrated with our Services (such as iCloud or Google Drive), they will receive information about what you share with them. If you interact with a third-party service linked through our Services, you may be providing information directly to such third party. Please note that when you use third-party services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those services.

There's language similar to Facebook's that says if other people share information about you to them... oh well.
Yeah, I'm amazed and concerned that you have a security team so paranoid that they would make SuperUser read-only but apparently lack the ability to perform SSL interception. Considering the huge value the latter has in any kind of post-compromise scenario and, increasingly, to prevent compromise in the first place... there needs to be a real discussion about getting priorities in order.
I don't mind this (provided the request is decently specified and scoped), because I find interviews stressful and often pointless and work sample tests are (or should be) higher signal, but if I'm going to do a work sample test, I don't want to then have several phone or onsite interviews as a followup.

Ideally, when I'm given such a test I should be able to predict my success at completing it well enough to know whether it is worth my time. There could, of course, be unforeseen problems, but I should be able to judge the likelihood that spending the time to complete the exercise will get me the job. This means that cultural expectations are expressed up front. Do you expect the job applicant to adhere to your company code style guide or expect unit tests? I'd assume the latter is a frequent expectation but it doesn't hurt to mention; practices vary greatly from company to company so a reminder could be useful. Or maybe you write a lot of functional JavaScript on your team, and want to know if a candidate is familiar with that style. If you reject a candidate because they didn't match your preferred style but didn't ask for that, you're likely wasting my time and yours.
Todd Henry: My Bookshelf
Yes, we should ban lithium batteries because to make flying more inconvenient even though it is safer than it's ever been.

Everyone can go around with battery-less laptops so they can't use them in the few planes that get retrofit, and no other place without plugs.
1.3B page views per month
Losing that "we are the only source/seller for our branded products" factor is likely to be a downside of expanding to other retailers. If you know you're the only possible source it should make it much easier to detect and shut down any possible counterfeit sales on Amazon.
I have been wanting to play with wrapping the ESP-IDF for Nim (using the excellent c2nim tool), but ... it appears to be a fairly hefty job. Although I am sure Araq could do it in no time :)
>I don't believe that I limited my comment to cow leather.

I did. Usually, when people talk about "leather", they're talking about cow leather, not goat leather, sheepskin, alligator skin, etc. Usually, those other things, which are far more rare and expensive, are explicitly named. No one with an alligator-skin handbag calls it a "leather handbag". If cow meat magically became worthless because no one wanted to eat it any more (or even use it for pet food), no one would be killing cows for their skin IMO. The price would be too high, and you could get the skins from other animals instead. Goat leather is much nicer than cow leather, for instance. Why pay a ton for cow leather when you can have something better instead for that price? We only use it so much because it's cheap, and because synthetic alternatives aren't quite as good yet (though that's changing).

>I'm not sure if animals would agree that an easy life free from random predation is much better than a harder life that comes with freedom.

That's not the alternative. Cows are not wild animals. They're domesticated; they only exist because we bred them to be the way they are. They couldn't even survive in the wild. This isn't like alligators being hunted in the wild swamps of FL for their skins. So the alternative is 1. an easy life free from random predation or 2. not existing at all. The same alternative exists for any livestock animal: it's either be born into a life being used by humans somehow, or not be born at all. Which is better? I really don't know. I'm not sure anyone can know that really, since we've never had to live that life, and can't really know the thoughts and desires of these animals. Do chickens living at a crowded Tyson facility, confined to a tiny cage and being shat on by chickens in little cages stacked on top of them, hate their lives so much that they wish they'd never been born? Maybe. Do chickens raised in a family's backyard with lots of space to roam and a henhouse they can enter or leave at will, but who one day get grabbed and flipped upside-down and their head chopped off, prefer they'd never been born? Somehow I doubt it, until that last fateful day (which they probably didn't know was coming; they're probably not smart enough to wonder "hey, why aren't there any elderly chickens here?").
> very high prestige... Wolf of Wall Street... ego... cocaine

The lifestyle appeals to some, but not all, and Wall Street's "very high prestige" doesn't really exist outside NYC and its immediate neighbors. For most people, finance is associated with greed-fueled, drug-addled sociopaths who have to pay for sex and companionship, since that's what's portrayed in "Wall Street," "Wolf of Wall Street," the news, etc., and they don't associate that with prestige.

There are a lot of cautionary tales about Wall Street for a reason. Some in finance get out alive, others end up washed up or burnt out, barely maintaining employment, battling chronic depression due to years of abusing their brain chemistry. A million dollar bonus would be nice, but the other stuff I can do without.
>Anyone have a source of "further reading" on perceptions towards people not on facebook?

I don't know joshstrange or his circle of friends but since I experience zero stigma of not being on Facebook, it seems to be highly depended on one's particular peer group.

If I think of the 5 people I regularly interact with, none of them have Facebook accounts. Therefore, it's not strange that I don't have Facebook. The topic never comes up. However, some of the guys' wives have Facebook accounts so in some sense, the female spouses act as the "Facebook gateway" to the outside world. I chuckle at this state of affairs because it seems to duplicate the exact situation of the yesteryear where the husbands engrossed in the newspaper/tv always ignored the ringing landline phone and let the wife answer it.

If it makes you feel better, a lot of celebrities (including some under age 30) don't use Facebook either. There are various articles listing names: https://www.google.com/search?q=celebrities+not+on+facebook
Words mean things.

Yes, they do. And language changes, as your parent points out. One of my pet peeves is those who use "steep learning curve" to mean something difficult to learn as opposed to its original meaning of something that's easily learned based on a skill vs time chart.[0] If I were to continually point it out when it's misused, people would get annoyed with me and the amount of change I would accomplish approaches zero. The language moves on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve

Edited to fix typo.
burntsushi's performance analysis of string parsing in Rust vs. Go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13268051

I learned quite a few things about both Rust and Go!
I've heard the same thing, that it's an alternative to "biased" whiteboard interviews. Which is a commendable goal, but it just ends up biasing the process against people who don't have the free time. I passed on that one.

I actually don't mind the 45 minute automated screens that are outsourced to a code screening vendor -- my experience is that when the in-person interviewers see the results of that they are able to jump into more meaty questions instead of FizzBuzz. It's a net improvement for everyone's time.
The other problem with Pascal's wager is widespread disagreement about what you really have to do to satisfy the alleged deity. Many religions claim that if you aren't a member of that particular religion, then you go to hell. Well, with all the different religions, that makes it pretty hard to choose the "correct" one, doesn't it? And if you're looking at the ways you have to limit your life and actions (e.g. not having premarital sex) to please this god, again, the different religions disagree hugely. Some religions say it's sinful to drink alcohol, others don't have this problem. Some say you can't eat pork or shellfish, again others disagree. Some religions say that you need to be completely celibate (I think the Shakers were like this), and not have any kids. So your odds of both choosing the "correct" religion and following its precepts acceptably are vanishingly small.
Rstudio::conf 2017 Session Recordings videos
Google leak-hunting team put under unwelcome spotlight
Well worth mentioning the link to the Cronitor Indie Hackers Interview: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/cronitor

Love the thinking behind "why" they raised their prices and the results after doing so.
There is an easier model called "less stringent security". Flying is incredibly safe. There is little evidence that the TSA's onerous security processes safe enough lives to be worth their massive costs.
Steuard deserves a medal for that thread. (Or a beer, coffee or cookie. Whichever he likes.)
/team lead/

IANAL - but note that we also have Microsoft R (and enhanced version of CRAN R) which provides local multi-threading, and cluster level parallelization + distributed memory support. It and the stock R interpreter have lots of GPL code. And given that both R & Python are now integrated with SQL Server, it seems that the lawyers have become comfortable regarding the separation lines. SQL Server for example calls an external script for R/Python.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-r-serv...

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2017...

Thanks!
https://github.com/clMathLibraries
This article is interesting because most people on Earth are resource-constrained. Also, many first-world people still don't have sufficient digital literacy to be aware when/if their technologies are receiving security updates. Finally, scooping up every last consumer of content via maybe important for financial or social venture success if the costs are scalable, but also maybe required by accessibility regulations which benefit the common wealth. I think the point of the article is to realize reality for most people isn't the same as the bubble in high-income metropolitan areas, and that a balance of competing tyrannies is necessary when considering what and whom to build for and support.
I applied at a company that I assumed had at least 40+ people (assuming normal turnover) because of the frequency of job postings. Turned out they had 4 employees. And they wanted me to create a full application before I was given a second interview. Nah.
UseR 2016 international R User conference videos
Look, I'm not trying to get into an argument with you here, but:

1) You are not an authority on all programmers, or even most programmers.

2) The primary way that programmers express their work is by typing. The idea that programmers don't do very much typing, or that typing comfort/safety isn't relevant to programers is demonstrably absurd.

>"it is probably brain dead boilerplate that should have been automated somehow."

3) This thinly veiled derision is, imho, not constructive/rude. Do you consider the linux kernal "brain dead boilerplate"? Just some quick googling shows that the per developer code contribution is about 11,000 loc per release. That is code that was in the release, and doesn't even account for code that was typed, then removed, then retyped, etc.

Believe whatever you want, but I find the idea that programmers somehow don't need to care about ergonomics extremely shortsighted.
Thanks. I'm not sure that this conforms to GraphQL best practices. http://graphql.org/learn/serving-over-http/ It seems GET methods should be supported for more than just introspection queries.
My guess would be that the gear at Mosul would not be as advanced as elsewhere.