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