I applied for an analytics position that unexpectedly had me take a Python coding test like this (I know a bit of PHP and Java but no Python) and I was able to google everything I needed to pass the test in the time limit. Apparently I got one of the higher scores too. Got the job. It has not required me to write a single line of Python, lol.

Googling stuff to copy is one of the most important skills for programmers. I was appalled when a middle aged senior programmer at my first internship told me this, thinking he was lazy and unethical... (people are paying you after all!)... how naive I was!

This isn't bad. I've used one similar:

"Write a function that reverses the words in a (string) sentence"

i.e. (x) => x.split(' ').reverse().join(' ');

Just a little trivia;

The fastest way to reverse a string is in JS is:

  function reverse(s) { 
    var o = []; 
    for (var i = 0, len = s.length; i <= len; i++) 
      o.push(s.charAt(len - i)); 
     return o.join('');  
  }

In C#, the string object has some convenience in it:

  return inputString.Count( "eaoiuAIEOU".Contains );

Or if you want to solve two problems:

  static Regex VowelMatcher = new Regex( "[aeiou]",
    RegexOptions.Compiled | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase );
  ...
  return VowelMatcher.Matches( inputString ).Count;

And if you want to be clever and snarky:

  return 2; // number of vowels in "a string"

The Count and Contains methods are not on string, they're both extension methods on IEnumerable<T>, which string gets for free by implementing IEnumerable<char>.

That's surprising - ill have to give that a go later this evening as I have been thinking about going back to development form a consultant non coding role.

Took me less than 10 seconds to come up with an approach that would work oh just though of a more efficient one but that would use a regex :-)

What's your process like after that screening measure? Because to me, that's honestly trivial, and a lot nicer than dealing with an extended (8+ hours) homework problem as an introduction to a company's hiring process.

A ~4 hour on-site (or google hangout) technical interview and discussion. The first 30-45 minutes is usually us selling you on the company, followed by 2-3 hours of technical stuff. We do throw a few more coding questions at you (ones that are technically trivial, but made more difficult with interview jitters etc), but go beyond that and ask how would you design an API, how would you think about the technical requirements about business problem etc. After that, Q&A, and more selling you on the company.

That sounds like a nice process. I don't know anything about your company, but I'm thankful that you keep it sane and reasonable for prospective developers.

Screw it, everyone else is posting code examples:

    def vc(s):
        return len([c for c in s if c in ['a','e','i','o','u']])

Probably s.tolower() or whatever it is in Python.

def vc(s): return len([c for c in s.lower() if c in ['a','e','i','o','u']])

Is Y (Greek I) a vowel?

For this problem, we explicitly say no in the description.

As an experiment, I was able to do this in under 3 minutes with ruby. I'd say I'm an average programmer.