The FizzBuzz Paradox

http://nadamhu.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/the-fizzbuzz-paradox/

by nadam • 13 years ago

6 5 13 years ago

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rootsofallevil• 13 years ago

Just because people say that 95% of the candidates could not solve does not mean it was actually 95%.

The other thing to consider is how many candidates have they actually interviewed to arrive at that stat?

thebear• 13 years ago

One reason for the paradox could be that solving a problem on a whiteboard or in a similar interview situation is different from actually writing a program. I could easily see myself failing the fizzbuzz test on a whiteboard. My programming style is highly iterative, even on a micro-level. I don't expect what I write down in the first iteration to be correct. I begin by writing something so I have something to look at and, more importantly, to step through. A full understanding of the problem and its solution evolves in that process of write code - write test - step through code - rinse - repeat. For me, that's more efficient and gives better results than to mull over that first draft and trying to get it right, the way you would on a whiteboard.

P.S. I found an error in this comment after I posted it, so I had to edit it. The iterative method rules.

nadam2• 13 years ago

Very good point, this can be an important factor. (I also have a very iterative coding style.)

tbirdz• 13 years ago

One of the key things about FizzBuzz is testing divisibility by 3 and 5. There is a lot of software you can write without using the % operator, so perhaps there are large amounts of self trained programmers who never learned about this?

nadam2• 13 years ago

This is also a very good point, I did not think about this. Maybe we should come up with a FizzBuzz-like basic test that is similarly easy, but does not need the modulo operator.

The FizzBuzz Paradox

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