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#off-topic
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2017-12-04
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New To Clojure08:12:39

Does anybody know how to prepare to interview with whiteboard Clojure coding (possibly have to memorize Core Library)? I read Clojure docs a lot while coding usually to find out which function to use, it's arguments ordering, optional arguments and so on.

vijaykiran10:12:23

@ghsgd2 White board Clojure coding souds cruel

qqq11:12:10

I can't imagine doing clojure without auto indent / paren matching

New To Clojure14:12:39

@qqq lucky you if that's the only reason its' harder!

vemv14:12:37

funny, I was wondering something related, but from an opposite POV: would USA Clojure employers ask me to do some whiteboard exercises at all? keep in mind that at least in my experience (Barcelona startups) you'll almost never get a whiteboard-driven interview, here that sounds like a 'dumb american thing' (sorry)

vemv15:12:47

my presumption is, given there's certain scarcity of Clojure developers, and that Clojure employers tend to know a bit better than the average, wouldn't be a whiteboard exercise wasteful and risky?

borkdude15:12:50

They should do a REPL interview instead of a whiteboard interview.

tbaldridge15:12:41

I've never heard of someone requiring whiteboarding of Clojure, but you never know.

tbaldridge15:12:57

I once took a (hand)written test to get a job in C#. šŸ˜

tbaldridge15:12:33

I ended up critiquing their questions and pointing out some flaws in the examples they gave. I got the job, but I'm not sure how.

tbaldridge15:12:19

But yeah, REPL interview questions are fairly common, but I dislike taking and giving them, as coding and thinking on-the-fly isn't something that you'll often ask an engineer to do.

tbaldridge15:12:46

"Code up a qsort in Clojure now!" is something I've never been asked to do "in real life".

vemv15:12:05

yesterday HN frontpage story described how the author prepared 2 months doing computer-sciencey whiteboard interviews it paid off for him with plenty of solid offers, but that might be only necessary if you're aiming for the niche of "OO GAFA in SV"? (genuinely asking)

solf16:12:29

I recently did an interview for a clojure job, there was some whiteboard clojure stuff (although I'm the one who chose clojure, any other functional language would do). It wasn't bad at all: - While it was clojure and not pseudocode, if I wasn't sure of the name of a function or the order of the arguments that was no big deal, I only had to tell the examiner what the intent was, sometimes he would correct the name of the function, sometimes he didn't remember either and we would just made up a name. - The problems weren't very long either, at least not long enough that parenthesis maze was a problem - It allowed me to evaluate my interviewer. That last point may seem funny, but in my limited experience (3 years working) more than half the companies I interviewed with had very light technical tests (at Paris), and in hindsight they often were companies where without very good developers. Now I discriminate towards companies where the technical test seems too easy.

liath19:12:58

It's definitely useful to probe the interviewer. Coming from that side of the table, simply showing basic knowledge in the things you put on your resume goes a long way.

liath19:12:17

The majority of applicants I saw dusted their resume with buzzwords they had no knowledge of. When I was in the position of hiring people, the first technical test I did was just to see if you at least could tell me what was on your resume and talk sensibly about use-cases for those things. I only ever got to the whiteboard on a third interview.

liath19:12:27

And then it was always questions specific to the role they would be in. The Google interview questions were only mentioned jokingly, the company was no Google and there's no reason to set that tone.

seancorfield19:12:38

I don't like the sort of interviews where candidates are put on the spot and asked to "code something!" -- as a hiring manager, I've never done that, and as a candidate I've walked out of interviews where they try to require that of me.

seancorfield19:12:09

It's not how developers work in real life and it says very little about a candidate's ability "in the field".

noisesmith19:12:27

selfishly, Iā€™m better at improvising things that look cool on my feet and giving a good presentation, than I am at making good code that is stable and usable, so bring it on! šŸ˜