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Discussion on: Explain like I am five: API

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armousness profile image
Sean Williams

Which only makes the question more ironic, since they're needlessly complicating things by asking it this way. You might accuse me of doing the same, but in my opinion I'm just rising to the complexity of the question. I'd give the interviewer more slack if this were any job but programming...

I mean, computers don't share our intuitions, or rather, computers don't have intuitions at all. When you're looking at code, "seeing the intention" (rather than seeing what's written) is the thing that makes debugging so difficult. Asking a question that isn't what you intended, but relying on people to fill in the details for you—it feels contrary to the spirit of programming, and frankly, intellectually sloppy.

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srcmilena profile image
Milena

It was a little complicated to me since my mind was full of content... trying to make it easier to understand would be hard at that moment, so quickly and suddenly.

So I think I understand your concern about it when you say about the spirit of programming