I'm a CIS student and a telecommunications professional, with aspirations of eventually being a professional programmer, so if this is a dumb question, please forgive me.
If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming jobs, what do they do at work?
I can solve fizzbuzz easily, but I haven't ever built an application that I would consider useful. I've solved puzzles like fizzbuzz and completed lots of programming assignments (mostly involving stuff at the command line) and I feel like I know nothing when it comes to actually building something significant. I feel like it would be impossible for me to get an entry-level programming job right now, but from the sound of it, maybe not.
> If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming jobs, what do they do at work?
The good news: They cause the programming messes which you'll eventually get hired to clean up, while they're off somewhere else making another mess for you.
> I can solve fizzbuzz easily, but I haven't ever built an application that I would consider useful.
The bad news: All you're ever do is clean up those frauds' messes. Anyone can build a system with 100k lines of Java code (incl comments). But only people like you can come along after it's up and running and make it work, so that's all you're ever be doing. Unfortunately, the employers will expect you to carry a cellphone around and solve those problems at 3:00am. It's cheaper to pay you 10% extra for wake-up calls than take your time away from other maintenance clean-ups in the daytime.
If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming jobs, what do they do at work?
Much of the programming work out there is little more than connecting libraries together into an easy to use package. I've worked with some people that I'm not sure could pass the fizzbuzz test, but they were still really good at what they could do and provided value to the organization that way.
Those people probably aren't going to be hired by Google to optimize their search algorithms, but software development is many-faceted. You don't always need someone with those skills to still create something of value.
If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming jobs, what do they do at work?
I can solve fizzbuzz easily, but I haven't ever built an application that I would consider useful. I've solved puzzles like fizzbuzz and completed lots of programming assignments (mostly involving stuff at the command line) and I feel like I know nothing when it comes to actually building something significant. I feel like it would be impossible for me to get an entry-level programming job right now, but from the sound of it, maybe not.