I do wonder how many 40+ programmers are able to keep up with "young ones" in these contests.

I fear it is like chess, the cognitive decline starts to become noticable in the mid 40s and only gets worse from then on.

There are a few exceptions like Korchnoi was in chess so there must be Fabrice Bellards and Bill Joys who would be able to keep up.

Still looking at completion times for Advent of Code made me feel old.

I think also the interviewer gets to feel smart. Always nice to have the answers.

Yeah, right. Clearly they have nothing better to do and are all egomaniacs.

I think its more of aptitude test in a domain common to all programmers.

The problem with this thinking is this "aptitude" is something which comes naturally. I was drilled with this "aptitude" nonsense when I was a student where the teachers would say that if a person "gets" a problem and finds a solution then he is a natural for the subject.

In my practical experience I find that to get the "aptitude" requires a lot of effort put in it. It definitely would vary depending on the person and his experiences but practicing it is very important to go forward.

Yeah right. Tell me the last time you built your own red-black tree in real actual code at work. Or did a sort by any other means than tacking “order by” on the end of a query.

They are a test of how recently you crammed for your CS finals, that’s all.

Or how much effort you're willing to put into prepping for interviewing and getting a new job. It definitely filters against the casual looker.

Which, to some extent, makes sense. You're basically filtering out people who won't put in the effort to get the job. Whether or not those who put in the extra effort are actually going to be better employees is a different decision.

There are languages - C and Go, and to a lesser extent, C++ - in which re-implementation of data structures and algorithms is not uncommon.

To your larger point, data structures and algorithms are popular in interviews for the same reason Project Euler is popular - it is very easy to ask a well defined, but interesting question about core CS or math.

Would be legit if the job required tasks like implementing red-black trees or sorts.

As is, it's more like advertising for python, then surprise java.

Indeed. If the job was implementing algorithms on bare metal then bring it on! That job sounds like a lot of fun!

But those kinds of questions make zero sense and have zero value if the job is actually implementing CRUD apps in a high level language. You might as well quiz candidates on their assembly language skills too, for a Python job...

So there is obviously an ulterior motive.

Tell me a better standardized question set for programmers that measures intelligence efficiently.

Do you think that that’s what that does? Interesting.

It's not ok to comment like this here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry, it was indeed an off-the-cuff remark in poor taste.

That's enlightening. Never thought of it that way.

Maybe it's just a way to provide a fair test that anyone with ability can pass with a little practice?

I wouldn't call it "a little practice". There are people who are "into" competitive programming and there are people who aren't, and those "fair" tests are skewed towards the former group. The worst thing is that the actual job has nothing to do with the competitive programming at all.

Another filter for age is that 20-something’s are more likely to have time for this whereas older people may have more time commitments already

People in their 20s and 30s now will regret not stamping out ageism when they hit their 40s and 50s, as they inevitably will

> People in their 20s and 30s now will regret not stamping out ageism when they hit their 40s and 50s, as they inevitably will

The problem is, everyone in their 20s and 30s assumes they'll be gazillionaires by the time they're 40, because of course they're brilliant and hard work always pays off! Ageism is only a factor if you're not smart enough to make a billion by the time you're facing it.

Hard work does pay off. Believe in karma.

Karma goes both ways. Those that practiced ageism will find that out themselves eventually.

Unfortunately then the victims of ageism now will find that cold comfort in the future.

Rote leaning and getting a piece of paper is not a good way to interview for candidates who can when given a task that wasn't on the test research and implement a solution under their own power.

Memorising derivations of algorithms and solutions to puzzles from a book like Cracking The Coding Interview surely is just rote learning. There should be a high correlation between the content of the interview and the actual job, or what is the interview really for?

That's not a popular viewpoint around here. :D