I'm sorry, this is just non-sensical -- I do not mean to say that all interviewing practices are good or that there is not a lot of great humor in your post giving away the original book -- but as someone who has hired many software engineers and persevered through some coding questions as a candidate, these things have value. IT's nothing about "worker drone" or "rot your brain" -- companies need some ways to see if people can 1. code and 2. collaborate before adding them to the team. Candidates need ways to understand what those hiring processes (not just the coding question) are like and to have a fair chance to prepare for them.
I'm going to quote again part of that passage to which I literally flipped open the book:
> Asking this question will show an eye for detail and a solid foundation in computer science.
Which question an experienced programmer who developed string routines in a low-level language might well ask, and maybe that's who the authors stole it from as they were collecting material for the book, so that readers of the book could then BS and pretend to have thought to ask it, like this author recommends, although the author should also know it has almost nothing to do with CS.
Perhaps one would protest that this bit isn't representative of the book. Feel free to argue that God was guiding my hand, to the only bit of poo in the book. But then you have to ask yourself why God thought that taking down this book was so important, for Him to intervene.
So I actually skimmed much of the book, and I'm confident in saying that it's full of poo.
Initially, this idea that people should have study hundreds of pages of material specific to interview rituals was maybe a little too familiar, to people of a certain socioeconomic class. Like an admissions-gaming "prep" service, which in the past you'd give to affluent kids, to give them special advantage in getting into a prestigious school, if you couldn't afford to buy the school a new building.
OK, we could be wrong about the snotty pedigree angle, so let's consult the author's bio on the book's Web site:
> Gayle is the Founder / CEO of CareerCup.com and the author of two books: Cracking the Coding Interview, Amazon.com's #1 best-selling interview book, and The Google Resume. She has worked for Google, Microsoft, and Apple and served on Google's hiring committee. She holds a BSE and MSE in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School.
Which makes it look like not only a full-of-poo Ivy fratbro gatekeeping ritual, but -- plot twist! -- one that then was then cleverly sold out, by an MBA, to turn it into what's effectively a protection racket. (Youse have a lovely career potential; its would be a shame if somethings was to happen to it, because you didn't buy the book and memorize these disingenuous BS performance rituals.)
Back to your point: you don't need this full-of-poo book, nor the full-of-poo smug halfwit nonsense behind it, to assess "if people can 1. code and 2. collaborate". That's not what this book is about. You instead have to be smart, and stop forcing people to be full-of-poo corporate drone performers.
Hey, you know what, if you hire people like this book, even if you had a gazillion dollars, you'd have to throw away almost every new product they develop, for over a decade, and then eventually some upstart will come along and overnight destroy the single gazillion-dollar product (gifted by ancient ancestors, from before BS took over), which you've been coasting on all that time, because you're telling everyone from the very start, at the interview stage, that the company is about acting full-of-poo.
> Asking this question will show an eye for detail and a solid foundation in computer science.
My friend, you've clearly got the wrong book. I think there might be some confusion here. That exact sentence (as you've written it) doesn’t appear in our book—I just double-checked the digital version. None of the phrases “eye for detail,” “solid foundation in computer science,” or “asking this question” show up, either individually or together in our entire book.
If you're saying it is in the original Cracking the Coding Interview... ok? The book is a decade out of date at this point, and the originally linked post makes it clear that this book is very different from that one.
Companies continue to tell applicants to get the original book.
And the original book pretty much defined the current widespread techbro hiring idiocracy.
If the new book turns out to be a reversal, and begins with a passionate apology for earlier harm, and is made freely available (rather than double-dipping), and the original author goes on speaking tours (on their own dime) to recant to anyone who will listen, that would be a good start.
