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[return to "Being good at coding competitions correlates negatively with job performance"]
1. Barrin+72[view] [source] 2020-12-15 01:20:18
>>azhenl+(OP)
Having participated in competitive programming and comparing it to development work it feels to me comparing chess tactic puzzles to classical chess. If you're a good classical player you're probably reasonably good at puzzles, but the opposite is not necessarily true.

Competitive coding, despite superficially involving typing code into an editor, has almost nothing to do with working on large pieces of software. It's a lot of rote memorisation, learning algorithms, matching them onto very particular problems, and so on, it's more of a sport. Just like playing too much bullet chess can be bad for your classical chess I can honestly see how it gets into the way of collaborative work.

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2. cupofc+Z2[view] [source] 2020-12-15 01:26:29
>>Barrin+72
That's not an ideal comparison. Chess is 90% tactics, whereas development job isn't 90% competitive programming.
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3. Barrin+44[view] [source] 2020-12-15 01:34:29
>>cupofc+Z2
It's actually more subtle. Yes, chess is very tactical but the way you approach tactics in a puzzle is very different from how you mentally approach tactics in a game of chess.

If you already know that there is a tactic in the position your entire frame of reference changes. Which is actually why puzzle composition is treated very differently from actually playing, and a lot of famous composers are not particularly strong players.

This is why I feel it compares well to coding competitions. It looks so similar, but the mindset is very different. And only looking at tactics, just like only looking at coding as a game problem is I think why it may damage your performance at work.

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4. georgi+T5[view] [source] 2020-12-15 01:49:14
>>Barrin+44
Chess puzzles just never have realistic positions that you'd encounter in a real game so I can see why it wouldn't help you in games.
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