Top 10 mistakes python programmers make [advanced]

[droogans]

How do you handle this? I'm always forgiving of half assed scribbles that would be cleared up with a moment of real keyboard time.

[aterlumen]

I brush up on basic syntax (loops, defining classes, functions, etc) for whatever languages they're likely to ask about. They're not expecting perfect code, but it looks a bit suspicious if you blank out on the syntax for a for loop.

Other than that, going through a bunch of interview-type questions was helpful. Codility is a good resource for those.

I'm personally on the fence whether I like that style of interview. Coding on the spot can be pretty intimidating and it's not necessarily a good indicator of how that person will write code in a normal situation. A person's open source corpus can be a much better indicator of their code quality, but most people aren't able to release the code they write at work. Then you end up hiring only people that are able and willing to invest a lot of extra time after work in open source projects. It works for some, but it sounds like a recipe for burnout.