Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by djhworld on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @08:49AM (#15183167)

For the professions this is quite simple as there are standards, Doctors, Accountants etc are all trained to the standard qualifications that are often internationally recognised.

How could you do that for software engineers? There are so many programming languages, frameworks out there that are constantly evolving and companies have different demands.

I think it would be a really hard problem to generalise.

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Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by wolfgke on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @08:55AM (#15183218)

> There are so many programming languages, frameworks out there that are constantly evolving and companies have different demands.

An idea that I have thought of is to standardize on some programming language/frameworks/demands that are known to be supported for a very long time (15 years?). If you need something from this buffet, you are fine and have the advantages that this provides. If you have special demands, you are on you own - which is not a problem per se, but as all special demands this simply needs to increased risk or cost.

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Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by davb on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @09:32AM (#15183513)

I would love to see some sort of standardisation and rationalisation within software engineering. It's so fragmented and ego driven. Every framework is better than the last, my programming language is better than yours. Thought is rarely given to longevity. I'd much rather work with a more dated ecosystem that I know will be around of true next 20 years than the continual paradigm shifts we endure just now.

I'm exhausted and frustrated with the field as it exists just now.

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Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by mindcrime on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @09:52AM (#15183632)

Fair point, but consider that software engineering is a MUCH younger profession than, say, accounting. Consider that "double entry book-keeping" dates back to around 1340, and accounting in general is even older than that.

We've had about 60 years to figure this stuff out, and arguably the ground is always moving beneath our feat as the nature and scope of the systems we build keeps changing.

I'm exhausted and frustrated with the field as it exists just now.

Likewise, but I'm not sure what choice we have, except to hope Ray Kurzweil is right about some of this life extension ideas. If we can survive another 300-400 years, maybe things will be better.

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Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by pc86 on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @11:59AM (#15184661)

I'm not sure of anything, but if I had to pick one thing to bet on it would be that none of us, or our children's children['s children] will be here in 400 years.

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Re:Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist by icebraining on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @10:21AM (#15183890)

There are many jobs like that; it's not hard to some Java shop maintaining some CRUD software for over a decade, with no signs of switching. Hell, a colleague of mine just got a decent offer to develop in Informix 4GL.

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