I don't see the problem. Writing code by hand has its roots in the early days of computing with punch cards and C is ubiquitous. I suppose the comment was somewhat snide but if your skin is that thin are you able to work on a team without becoming the problem?
I don't understand why "roots in the early days of computing" is inherently good. We've learned a lot since those days. As a fun example, imagine defending storing plaintext passwords "because it has it's roots in the early days of computing".
Other than "because we've always done it that way", what do you learn about a candidate in a 30-60 minute whiteboard interview where you ask them to implement something they'll never have to implement on the job, while restricting them from all of the resources they have been trained to rely on (internet access, man pages, etc.)?
Sorting algorithms are taught as part of every CS degree and C is still used today. The only real change is there are a lot more low-quality programmers than there used to be. If you have to cheat to pass a test I think that would tell the interviewers a lot. Any code monkey can search StackOverflow.
>Sorting algorithms are taught as part of every CS degree and C is still used today.
I still don't understand what you're learning from the 30-60 minute interview. If you want to know if someone has a CS degree, look at their resume.
>The only real change is there are a lot more low-quality programmers than there used to be.
You'll need some data to back that one up.
>If you have to cheat to pass a test I think that would tell the interviewers a lot.
I would consider someone smart if they use every resource available to them to solve the problem presented to them. You consider it cheating. What a weird way of thinking -- just rote memorization for everything in life? Everything must be from first principles? Sounds tedious and inefficient to me.
Smart people realize that other smart people exist, and might even have valuable ideas or solutions applicable to their own problems.
People lie on resumes. I don't need data to give my educated opinion. Rote memorization/learning is extremely valuable, disputing that fact is ridiculous. Stupid people also exist and unfortunately most companies need to weed them out, at least from certain positions.
While your brain is busy upkeeping your memorized minutia, I'll be on bigocheatsheet.com looking up big-O notation for every single algorithm in seconds, and keeping more of my brain on the actual problems at hand.
Degrees are really straightforward to verify (at least from any accredited domestic school), a standard new hire background check would catch this. Obviously tech companies just don't think the degree is a super valuable signal, which I get. But I think they've turned around and placed too much emphasis on these whiteboard interviews.
Memorization can certainly be important. Memorizing random algorithms that you will never actually use during the job is less so. Conversely, other skills are important too. Poorly executed whiteboard interviews will select crammers who lack many other skills.
I have a CS degree and I develop for the web. Want to know how often I write sorting algorithms for my job? Never, nada, none in 3 years out of school. Could I if asked? Absolutely. First I would question why we aren't using a pre-written and pre-tested library, but if convinced I would pull up google and take some time to write a performant sorting algorithm with the knowledge we all have free access to.
Meanwhile a dev can study leetcode for months and land a job where it turns out they have little to no experience in the actual work they will be doing day-to-day. Who would you rather hire?
