The 37% Rule
September 21, 2018
You have to hire a new programmer from a pool of 100 applicants. One method is to interview all 100 and hire the best, but that takes a while. Mathematicians have developed the 37% rule:
Examine 37% of the candidates, knowing in advance you will not select any of them. Then examine the remaining candidates one-by-one, choosing the first of them that is better than any of the first 37%.
Your task is to simulate this process and determine how close you get to the optimal candidate. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 