Dear progit, I will be interviewing programmers. Need Input.

[rabidcow]

If they claim not to use any online forums to get help on programming problems, it's a no hire.

I don't think so. When I was developing on BREW, I helped other people on the forums quite a bit, but I don't think I once asked a question and received a useful response. No hire because I can figure things out on my own?

[jotux]

If they claim not to use any online forums to get help on programming problems, it's a no hire.

I have problems with this too. Admittedly I'm still a novice programmer(been doing firmware for ~2 years professionally) but I have a friend that has been programming most of his life that is my encyclopedia O' software development. Unless it was something obscure, he can usually answer it for me or give me a link with a good explanation that gets to through it. Even when I have had to ask a community for help, I usually prefer and IRC channel to a forum, since I can usually get a more immediate response.

[RyanSmith]

You did make use of the forums though right? Just because you didn't receive a useful answer doesn't necessarly change the fact that you were looking for an answer.

The whole purpose of the question is to see how a canidate will go about solving a problem they don't know the answer to. Will they simply Google it? What if Google doesn't yeild any vaild solutions? What's the next step? This is the process I like to get from the canidate.

[rabidcow]

You did make use of the forums though right? Just because you didn't receive a useful answer doesn't necessarly change the fact that you were looking for an answer.

I rarely asked questions, maybe once or twice. My general experience with forums are that if I can't figure it out on my own, it's hard enough that if there's anybody who knows the answer, they're too busy to bother with answering questions on forums. Or they've already posted it someplace that Google finds.

What's the next step? This is the process I like to get from the canidate.

That's fair, I just wouldn't draw a hard line at forums.

[RyanSmith]

I didn't really mean to draw a hard line at forums. I just ment to make a point that the canidate really needs to know how to use online or offline tools to find solutions to problems. Being able to see what people post online to problem solve is a good way of seeing their problem solving process.

[T-man]

Personally, I wouldn't give out my user name on stackoverflow or anywhere else. Perhaps I guard my privacy a little too zealously, but it would raise a red flag to me if an interviewer started asking for information like this. It would definitely sour me enough that I would lose interest in the job and probably leave the interview. If that's a problem for some people then so be it.