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Ask HN: How do you teach problem solving skills to software engineers?

2 pointsby ratpikabout 9 years ago
More often than not, I get people who have decent work experience and seem suited for a role but fail to unlearn and re-learn new ways of doing things. A lot of these people tend to come from a service company background where they do not dive deep into solving problems with code and instead try to cut-paste from across the internet which is good enough for projects that might not ever get completed or used only internally.<p>How does one re-train people who might have learnt computer science fundamentals at some point but have lost track of how to solve problems over the course of their earlier work experience?

1 comment

kiflerabout 9 years ago
Ask them to write instructions on how to tie their shoe.<p>Chances are, someone will say that they just bend over and tie them.<p>Point out to them that it isn&#x27;t quite that simple - once they see that a problem can be broken down further to the point that you&#x27;re telling your hand to put the lace against your index finger&#x27;s first knuckle and the point of the middle finger, they begin to understand - then introduce your methods which they happily embrace.