We use a coding test as a part of the interview process for new developers and it works quite nicely. Note it is just one part of the process, though it can help sway a decision when we are on the fence (I have personally seen it push the decision both in favor of and against a candidate). Also the test is a solved problem, we don't ask candidates to do our work for us :) Lastly we put a 2 hour limit on the test. Depending on what language the solution is submitted in this may result in an incomplete submission which is fine. We don't want candidates to spend tons of time on it (it is pretty easy to tell when someone has disregarded the time limit) since two hours of work is enough material to gauge metrics that we care about.
The submission was meant to be humorous, sorry to disappoint. No matter how you slice it parsing HTML from a 3rd party site is a major hack, though this does however work nicely (itch scratched). Lastly I have some other ideas for submissions so don't judge this as the worst just yet.
Until the source site changes the URL, or the URL arguments, or the page structure, or the doctype, or the CSS selectors, or the element ids, or whatever it is you key on to ferret out the content you care about. Scraping data embedded in markup not bound to an API spec is fragile regardless of how "properly" you parse it because there is no guarantee of structural consistency.
I have been working on this question for a long time and I think most people have been fooled into believing an incorrect answer. My research indicates that it's actually 41.
From the best comic writer[0] how he found the answer to be a little more than 41:
The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke.
It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number,
and I chose that one. Binary representations, base
thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense.
I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought
'42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story.
There is no amount of research that can take this away from me.
It's a good feature idea (I implemented a similar one in my open source webmail application a few years ago, I called it "freeze folder") but to go as far as "Paradigm shifted. Game changed" is over the top.
I guess it really depends on your definition of irrelevant. Personally I have no problem with candidates who have a storied past, since I seriously doubt they have made as many ill-informed decisions as I have. For some reason though I have a hard time accepting Romney's refusal to release tax returns before 2010 as legit. Maybe I just relate better with the type of candidate that smokes pot than the type that abuses offshore accounts :P
I agree with regard to full disclosure. The unfortunate reality is that what might normally be considered a past indiscretion can shred a potential candidate's chances at success, mostly thanks to the American electorate's unrealistic expectations. I guess it all depends on what you consider an acceptable indiscretion, but without full disclosure you really can't know for sure.
