Archive for July, 2011

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

The LibraryThing programming quiz!

Want to apply for one of the technical jobs at LibraryThing? Take the test below. If you can do it in under five minutes, let’s talk!

Background. I’ve been spending a lot of my time going through (read: “drowning in”) applications for our 2-3 open technical jobs. And I’ve been conducting a few interviews. The latter has demonstrated to me again the value of asking applicants to write code, especially simple code, during the interviews.

That interviews should involve simple code is now common wisdom in programming circles. The story is that a high percentage of programmers, even people with impressive resumes, “just can’t code.” Asked to do the simplest things—problems a good coders could solve as fast they could write—some spend ten or twenty minutes before they get an answer, or fail entirely. (See discussion by Jeff Attwood and Joel Spolsky.) I don’t go as far as others here. I think a lot of “slow coders” are probably excellent employees, making up for it in other areas. Some projects don’t need speed. Some people just need to spend more time programming; everyone was a slow programmer some time. But I know from experience that slow coders don’t work at LibraryThing. They don’t fit the LibraryThing development culture.

“Simple code” is critical. When I first started interviewing I’d ask people to solve hard problems. This didn’t work. As Spolsky’s famous “The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing” argues, however, simple problems are just as good, or better. Simple problems test simple skills, and simple skills are the basis of complex ones. A programmer who struggles to loop through a bunch of words will be at sea performing far more complex tasks. If you can’t boil water your Toad in the Hole is likely to come out wrong.

Coding tests irritate a minority of people. One applicant said his resume should speak for itself. I have no time for that attitude—though I’m happy for the weeding help. Good programmers should welcome the opportunity to demonstrate they’re good at what they do. Heck, most programmers I know enjoy brain teasers anyway. They test themselves when no one’s looking.

The rules.

  • Time yourself.
  • Write this code in any language you want. Use your best language. If you can do many, PHP, Python and Javascript are preferred.
  • Write it out longhand or in a simple text editor.
  • I don’t care much about syntax. You can fix whether it’s isArray or is_Array later. If it has some obvious bug you’d fix in a second, fine.
  • This is not a trick question.
  • I’m not asking for some imaginary “best answer” that does everything in one line of self-writing code, or whatever.

The problem.

Input is a string—a paragraph of text. One of the paragraphs above would be fine.

Output is a report listing how many words there are with X letters, like:

10 words with 1 letter
20 words with 2 letters
7 words with 3 letters
15 words with 4 letters, etc.

How’d you do? Programmers employed by LibraryThing can do this in between 45 seconds and four minutes. We expect you to be in that range. If you’re applying for the sysadmin position you can be slower. (We think good sysadmins need to be able to program, but you don’t need to be a crackerjack programmer.)

If you’re in that ballpark in any language, go ahead and and apply!

UPDATE: We are NOT approving comments with the solution. We don’t want people to be exposed to it when they read this—it would defeat the purpose. We’ll approve them after the job is filled.

Labels: Uncategorized

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

LibraryThing for Libraries International

We’ve recently added a series of improvements to the LibraryThing for Libraries OPAC enhancements, in an attempt to make them more useful and friendly to a non-English audience.

Header text
The header for each enhancement (e.g. “Tags” or “Similar books”) has always been editable, so you can label the Similar books enhancement “You might also like” or “recommended books”. Or, maybe title it “Lignende titler” or “Soortgelijke boeken” or “Liknande böcker” or “Obras similares.”

Translation of all English text
We’ve recently added the ability to let libraries translate the entire interface of the LTFL enhancements. All the text in the reviews lightbox, for example, or in the tag browser. See the below screenshot of the tag browser in a German library.

To use the translation feature, log into your LTFL account and click the Enhancements tab. Click on “Edit/Translate Interface” under the Configure section, and start translating!

Language preferences
When multiple editions of a work are available at your library, LibraryThing for Libraries picks the most popular edition. We’ve just added the ability to preference certain languages. This lets you, for example, pick a less popular German edition over a more popular English one. In the screenshot above, note that it’s pointing to “Sakrileg” by Dan Brown (instead of the English edition, “The Da Vinci Code”).

To enable language preferences, log into your LTFL account and click the Enhancements tab. Then navigate to Global configuration, and scroll down to the new field titled “Edition language preference.” Here you can enter a comma-separated list of MARC language names (e.g., ger, fre) that will control which edition of a work is displayed.

About LibraryThing for Libraries: LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL) is a system of OPAC enhancements, designed to make your OPAC more engaging and informative. LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements include Tags, Reviews, Similar Books, Shelf Browse, Series, Awards, Lexile measures and Other Editions. We also offer Library Anywhere, a full-featured mobile catalog and website for any OPAC.

To subscribe to LibraryThing for Libraries, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

If you already subscribe to one of the LTFL enhancements and would like some help configuring translation settings, email abby@librarything.com.

Labels: international, languages, librarything for libraries, ltfl, translation

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

LibraryThing for Libraries in VuFind

I’m happy to announce that the LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements for your catalog are now available in VuFind.

You can see the LTFL “catalog enhancements” (other editions, similar books (recommendations), and tags) live in the Swansea University’s catalogue.

LibraryThing for Libraries has a total of nine different OPAC enhancements to pick and choose from: Tags, Lexile® Measures, Other Editions, Reviews, Shelf Browse, Similar Books, Series, Awards and QR Codes. It works on a wide variety of systems—all the major OPACs and many of the minor ones as well. See all the libraries using LTFL here.

Labels: librarything for libraries, ltfl, VuFind