mark-r, when somebody uses the term "impossible" - generally it may mean 2 things: a) it's truly impossible b) It's very unlikely but still possible.
You settled for a). Typically of what geeks do ( yeah, I'm guilty of it too).
Anyway. you seem to be an outlier to being able to solve the problem without having being familiar with it before hand. Do you realize you are extraordinary?
(FYI: I'm not saying that with sarcasm, you might indeed be "riddle" genius, or perhaps even a "real problem", problem solver)
I can see now that I was interpreting the statement contrary to the intent of the writer. Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing it out.
I've always thought of myself as being pretty clever, but I'll bet many HN readers would say the same about themselves. "extraordinary" seems a little over the top, but thank you.
>I've always thought of myself as being pretty clever, but I'll bet many HN readers would say the same about themselves. "extraordinary" seems a little over the top, but thank you.
There are enormous implications to this seemingly harmless labeling of yourself ( not blaming you). I insist you are extraordinary, not merely 'pretty clever', not only based on my observation but also judging by other people's reactions to you your post.
Off the top of my head there are 2 implications that can be typically attributed to such traits ( and I'm not saying that you are particularly cause those implications, it's just typical):
- if someone like you is an interviewee for a programming position, your average Joe interviewer who asks you algorithmic questions ( or often some clever question) will not like the fact that you can easily solve the problems that you are presented with.
- If a person like you is an interviewer for a regular corporate programming position( which does not involve algorithms), the person is likely to pose problems of this nature to candidates for the job. When candidates routinely fail to solve those problems the person is left wondering why the candidate pool is so bad. To the interviewer the solutions seems so obvious ( or can be figured out easily) to someone who is just 'clever'.
And the industry complains how it cannot find people for CRUD programming jobs....
I figured, that's what most "normal" people would assume. ( and so would I).
But computer geeks ( we are talking about kind of people who code for 'fun') are not normal people. Their default is to take words' meaning literally, unless they have somehow (often painstakingly) managed to learn the ways of normal folks communicate.
You settled for a). Typically of what geeks do ( yeah, I'm guilty of it too).
Anyway. you seem to be an outlier to being able to solve the problem without having being familiar with it before hand. Do you realize you are extraordinary? (FYI: I'm not saying that with sarcasm, you might indeed be "riddle" genius, or perhaps even a "real problem", problem solver)