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> That and debate gave me the ability to just start a sentence without knowing where it will end and then talk my way to a conclusion that sounds like it makes sense

You're effectively advocating for more bullshit. The problem is that this works in the first place - we shouldn't be rewarding it.

We can't expect everyone utterance to be rational and logical. We're all just human at the end of the day. We should expect job candidates to try their best to get the job.

Yes we can! We’re computer programmers. Everything can and must be quantified.

/s

What's the point of asking these sorts of questions? Typically to try to get a sense of how somebody thinks and what sort of rapport they have with the interviewer while problem solving, not that they get to the "correct" answer.

I think they have some utility because this is a common occurrence when dealing with clients.

He isn’t advocating it. He is just saying that you must play the system as it is.

I don't know if he is really advocating it, but I absolutely support the notion that programmers should learn to bullshit better.

I'm not sure he's advocating for it, just pointing out that it's true.

> My takeaway, I guess—parents, make your kids do debate!

He's encouraging parents to make their kids learn this skillset. He is absolutely advocating for it.

He's saying "this makes you more likely to win at the game, perhaps you want to teach your kids this skill so they can win." He is not saying "the game is fair."

That is absolutely not the same thing. You have to play the game by the rules, that user is just telling you how to win.

don't hate the player, hate the game. easier to tweak personal actions to address the world as it is than to rant against how the world doesn't work per your ideals. at least this guy is self aware enough to admit there is some amount of bullshit in what he says. I am more concerned with people who refuse to admit this, or worse, genuinely don't believe it.

You're right, unfortunately that's what it sounds like I'm saying. It's not really what I meant. The idea I was trying to get across is closer to "being able to communicate what I'm thinking about as I'm thinking about it, and verbalizing that as a coherent sentence rather than just fragments." Ironically, I wish I had communicated that better :)

I’m a person who finds out what I’m thinking as I speak. Iterating towards an idea with confidence in each turn. Even if you end up in the vicinity of where you started, problem not actually solved, you demonstrate how you move through problem space.

Similar to another comment I read comparing interviews to athletic tryouts and competition, which tries to assess how a body moves through physical space.

Rhetoric was the most respected skill in Ancient Athens.[0] I think we would do well to stop thinking of rhetoric, debating, and public speaking as hobbies for some high school students. They are essential skills for wealth creation and advancement in society.

[0] https://liberalarts.online/trivium-and-quadrivium/

An upvote is warranted for a life long gift to kids to be able to communicate confidently.

A downvote is warranted for giving a bad advice on gaming a system and giving both parties in an interview process a poor indication of what is expected in possibly years to come.

Thus, no vote given.

I think given what I read about debate teams -- on podcasts and here in HN, I am on the fence on suggesting that to my kids. There are certainly great benefits, but not too certain if those out weights the drawbacks.

I'm not from a country that really does "debate teams", but as I understand them a lot seems to be about "winning the argument", which doesn't strike me as especially great.

On the other hand, it probably makes people better at spotting a bad/fallacious arguments, and gain appreciation that complex topics tend to have multiple reasonable opinions on it – two things we desperately need more of.

True, "winning the argument" is one of the main drawbacks I fear. The main benefits for me is to foster (often quick) logical thinking and reasoning and the ability to articulate it. It is difficult to build this skill without a "debate team" setting. More so if your kids are more on the shyness scale.

I completely agree with all of that.

Interestingly, I was an extremely shy kid growing up—less so now.

I don't mean to give advice on gaming the system—I'm sorry if I came across that way. The point I was trying to make was much closer to your first line—that the current interviewing system rewards confidence and communication skills, and that debate helped me build those. Ironically, I wish I had communicated that better :)

Also, I agree that there are drawbacks to doing debate. For one, there's a certain "debate kid" mentality that I picked up and had to unlearn.

Thank you for clarifying and confirming my other fear of undesired debate mentality. FYI, it's a good idea to edit your HN profile. When you write good comments, people may check it.

Thank you for the feedback—genuinely. I always appreciate feedback given in good faith.

What kind of edits do you have in mind? I somewhat-deliberately kept my profile vague, but I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to improve it.

> That and debate gave me the ability to just start a sentence without knowing where it will end ... it sounds like I've been thinking sensibly about it.

I've always structured my interviews to weed that kind of thing out.

I'd be interested to hear more about how you do that, and what you try to select for instead.

Comprehension. Ironically, I just started writing a blog post about it 10 minutes ago.

To summarize, I try and get the candidate to discuss tradeoffs between different approaches to common situations that the candidate should be familiar with.

For example:

Should GetUserById(int userId) return a null, or throw an exception, when there is no user with the ID? Explain the tradeoffs; or explain why each approach is better in different situations.

Should you deserialize (xml or JSON) to a dictionary or a strongly-typed object? What if you need to manipulate the document while preserving fields that you didn't know about at compile time?

Assuming you have the experience I'm screening for, you either know the tradeoffs or you don't.

Any open ended question like

> Explain the tradeoffs

will benefit greatly from being able to synthesize a bunch of information out of some simple base. Yea you need to know the technical details but being able to explain tradeoffs is more abstract and the OPs method will just lead to a better answer here.

Exactly, yes! It's about explaining what you're thinking about as you think about it. Silence is a killer in interviews in my experience (not always—you can be strategic—but for the most part), and I try to minimize dead air in any interview I'm in.

Why is it a bad thing? It's off the cuff, and likely less filtered than a prepared statement. If they end up somewhere sensible, then your interview process actually worked; you found someone who when confronted with a new problem, is able to think sensibly about it, even in an interview situation.

Because if you're talking without knowing what you're going to say, you're not thinking about the problem at hand.

The right thing to do is to narrate what you're thinking about. It's very different than starting a sentence without knowing what you're going to say.

"you're not thinking about the problem at hand."

But OP said he ended up somewhere sensible. He -was- thinking about the problem at hand. As he spoke. He got there in a roundabout fashion, perhaps, and had to think quickly, but it's still -valid-. He's not just bullshitting the interviewer (which is very noticeable and easy to suss out, and never ends anywhere sensible).

Duplicating a comment I made above, the idea I wanted to communicate is closer to "being able to communicate what I'm thinking about as I'm thinking about it" — NOT just rambling my way to a BS answer.

> project confidence even if I know what I'm saying is BS

One of my very worst bosses had this quality. Perversely, it was about the only thing I admired about him.

The guy could walk into a meeting of NASA flight engineers and engage in conversation without uttering a single fact that would betray his total lack of any knowledge/qualifications.

n.b. He was fired not long after I left the company.

To be clear: I don't advocate for doing that, and I don't try to BS my interviewers. That's why I said "let alone if I'm just a bit unsure"—if, during high school debate, I can confidently BS, then now, during an interview, I can confidently talk even if I'm nervous and not fully sure of myself.

> That and debate gave me the ability to just start a sentence without knowing where it will end and then talk my way to a conclusion that sounds like it makes sense

That sounds like a good skill to have in marketing, sales or politics. It sounds like a bad skill to have for engineering.

And an interview is very much marketing and sales of your skills :)

I concur. I did BP for only 1 semester in college but the experience proved to be valuable down the line. It forces you to articulate yourself "on the fly", streaming out ideas as they are formed (from core principles / bullet points you have in your mind).

Yes, exactly!

or Model U.N.