Comment by jpetersonmn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpetersonmn | Hacker News Reader

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I've been programming for a couple years now, part time. I work in IT troubleshooting proprietary software on customer's machines. I've written several vb.net applications to automate things in the office. (Screen scraping/website automation, log file readers/parsers,, etc...) Lately I've been working in python more for my screen scraping needs and also learning web2py. I've thought about trying to apply for a programming job where I work, or at least maybe see if I can shadow a programmer to see what it's like.

I've always been put off by thinking that I'd just be embarrassed because I'm not good enough and they'd laugh at my code. Nobody in my group at work does any kind of coding or scripting, and all my work is proprietary and I can't really share it on the internet for feedback. I've heard of this fizzbuzz test before, but just now looked up what it is exactly. I can't believe how easy that is, and that people are actually failing at it. Makes me feel like maybe I should apply for some of the developer jobs at our company.

> I'd just be embarrassed because I'm not good enough and they'd laugh at my code.

I don't think one is a good programmer until one believes themself to be a bad programmer.

When I was more green, I used to think "I've got this!", but as I learned more, I began to realize how little I really knew.

> I've always been put off by thinking that I'd just be embarrassed because I'm not good enough and they'd laugh at my code.

The good news is that you already sound like a programmer. It's been a decade since I first started programming and I'm excited when I don't cringe at code I wrote half a year ago.

The fact that you seem driven and willing to learn should be assets when you are applying.

Also look up [Dunning-Kruger effect]. You know enough to be worried you don't know enough! Definitely apply for developer positions, or work on external projects, where the details of your work can be discussed with other technical peers – not just its output as evaluated by non-technical people. It's the best way to improve.

To clarify, I don't think "Fizzbuzz" necessarily means "printing out Fizz on multiples of 3, Buzz on multiples of 5, etc." Fizzbuzz generally refers to a simple programming test to make sure candidates can actually write some amount of code.

No, it literally means what you said above, and the majority of applicants literally can't do it. It's shocking and sounds ridiculous, but is true.

I've interviewed people for a junior position recently. I gave the FizzBuzz test, verbatim from Wikipedia. Only about 10% were able to do it on a whiteboard, without help.

I can't write any code effectively on a whiteboard in front of an audience. -> I'm a terrible programmer.

TIL I'm a terrible programmer.

An audience of one. What about on a piece of paper? In front of a computer. How would do in code reviews? You can state your concerns to the interviewer to see if they can accommodate.

I've never seen a whiteboard interview with only one interviewer. The smallest was 2.

Whiteboards are for diagramming things more complicated than lines of code. [e.g. Interactions between several web services or paths of control across entire programs]

I've honestly just accepted that by the standards of many people's interviewing processes I'm a bad programmer. :)

Yup. Hell, if you think you can do it, but you're put off by a whiteboard, I'll get you a laptop with a development environment on it and leave the room to let you work on the problem.

Interviews are stressful. Keeping the candidate relaxed should be on the interviewer's mind.

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