A surprisingly large fraction of applicants, even those with masters' degrees and PhDs in computer science, fail during interviews when asked to carry out basic programming tasks. For example, I've personally interviewed graduates who can't answer "Write a loop that counts from 1 to 10" or "What's the number after F in hexadecimal?" Honestly, even five years after this article was posted, I still have a very hard time believing this part. I mean, sure, anyone can apply for a programming job even if they know nothing about it, but "even those with masters' degrees and PhDs in computer science"?! Unless they have an imaginary degree or something, it seems very unlikely. Still, it doesn't make the "hello world" test any less useful. This method of weeding out candidates is very well thought out and more business leaders should adopt it. I've seen enough clueless "specialists" in the industry already, and I'm still a junior.

This fad of having as few buttons as possible is also a pet peeve of mine. As a game developer, it's even more frustrating as I have to rely on the touch screen to do anything, and for games other than gimmicky Angry Birds ripoffs, this cripples the gameplay dangerously. What if I want to make a platformer or an RPG? You hardly have any controls with this kind of setup.