interview question
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encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance. So perhaps a better question would be what features make a language object oriented?
Mike Lasseter
I had an interview on Friday. It was for a project on .Net 3.5. I have not worked on anything above 2.0. So I was tested on my knowledge of framework. There came this question and I could not recall modularity. Rest all, I was spot on and was in. Now I will be trained on framework 3.5 and then I would work on it. That's great for me as I have been working in VB6 for almost a year now. And that too after working in .Net 2.0 for 1 Yr 7 months.
जय हिंद
modified on Saturday, March 21, 2009 5:00 PM
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Just curious as to everyone thoughts on asking OO if developers they know the three pillars of Object Oriented Programming. Our company has been interviewing lately and not many developers (some considered to be senior) can answer this question. Is this uncommon knowledge?
Mike Lasseter
Do you want developers which are book smart or developers with real experience? I could in-turn ask you to name and describe the SOLID principles. Could you do that?
Todd Smith
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I would expect a senior developer to have some idea about inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism and be able to explain what they are. I would also expect they have a good understanding of design patterns. Just because someone can fill a drop down list and a grid from a database doesn't mean they are a programmer. We do give a small programming exercise as well.
Mike Lasseter
mr_lasseter wrote:
design patterns
That is something I need to learn. I know about the design pattern of the applications I have worked on but not in general. I feel that I am approaching my three years in IT and I should start looking into these things.
जय हिंद
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Do you want developers which are book smart or developers with real experience? I could in-turn ask you to name and describe the SOLID principles. Could you do that?
Todd Smith
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Do you want developers which are book smart or developers with real experience? I could in-turn ask you to name and describe the SOLID principles. Could you do that?
Todd Smith
Is it too much to ask for both? And yes I could answer the question, although to be honest I did have a hard time remembering what the 'I' stood for.
Mike Lasseter
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I would expect a senior developer to have some idea about inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism and be able to explain what they are. I would also expect they have a good understanding of design patterns. Just because someone can fill a drop down list and a grid from a database doesn't mean they are a programmer. We do give a small programming exercise as well.
Mike Lasseter
mr_lasseter wrote:
I would expect a senior developer to have some idea about inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism and be able to explain what they are.
I agree with you. But someone can read and memorize the definitions of object oriented buzzwords the night before the interview.
mr_lasseter wrote:
Just because someone can fill a drop down list and a grid from a database doesn't mean they are a programmer.
No, but if they can do it quickly under pressure you can tell that they are comfortable programming. If they can't then perhaps they are not as experienced as they pretend to be.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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mr_lasseter wrote:
I would expect a senior developer to have some idea about inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism and be able to explain what they are.
I agree with you. But someone can read and memorize the definitions of object oriented buzzwords the night before the interview.
mr_lasseter wrote:
Just because someone can fill a drop down list and a grid from a database doesn't mean they are a programmer.
No, but if they can do it quickly under pressure you can tell that they are comfortable programming. If they can't then perhaps they are not as experienced as they pretend to be.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
I agree with you. But someone can read and memorize the definitions of object oriented buzzwords the night before the interview.
Answering the question correctly or wrong does not seal your fate either way. I was just surprised that so many people have not been able to answer the question.
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
No, but if they can do it quickly under pressure you can tell that they are comfortable programming. If they can't then perhaps they are not as experienced as they pretend to be.
What if they dragged and dropped their way to a solution?
Mike Lasseter
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Just curious as to everyone thoughts on asking OO if developers they know the three pillars of Object Oriented Programming. Our company has been interviewing lately and not many developers (some considered to be senior) can answer this question. Is this uncommon knowledge?
Mike Lasseter
i've been programming professionally for 15 years (primary C++ and C#). i have never come across a situation where the solution at hand depended on me knowing that. never. with all due respect, it's a pedantic and academic question. it tells you if the person paid attention in class but nothing about the person's ability to write and understand OO code.
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Just curious as to everyone thoughts on asking OO if developers they know the three pillars of Object Oriented Programming. Our company has been interviewing lately and not many developers (some considered to be senior) can answer this question. Is this uncommon knowledge?
Mike Lasseter
Not having heard the term for a very long time, out of interest I googled 'three pillars'. I got all sorts of hits, Three Pillars of Zen, Three Pillars of Judaism, several Businesses calling themselves Three Pillars whatever and some stuff about Vampires, before I got bored. Regrettably nothing about The Three Pillars of OOP. This would suggest to me that the term has fallen out of use. I suppose that the question could be rephrased something like "What features make a language Object Oriented?" Just an opinion.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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Is it too much to ask for both? And yes I could answer the question, although to be honest I did have a hard time remembering what the 'I' stood for.
Mike Lasseter
mr_lasseter wrote:
Is it too much to ask for both? And yes I could answer the question, although to be honest I did have a hard time remembering what the 'I' stood for.
I tend to subscribe to the Guerrilla Guide[^] when doing interviews. Knowing the definitions of things like SOLID, OO Pillars etc. is book regurgitation. I want to know how someone applies said techniques, how they architect an application, what patterns do they commonly use, do they consider the absence of source control the 8th deadly sin, do they practice TDD & CI, can they design their own containers, etc. These are all questions which draw upon their past experiences instead of providing the definitions of academic terminology.
Todd Smith
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Not having heard the term for a very long time, out of interest I googled 'three pillars'. I got all sorts of hits, Three Pillars of Zen, Three Pillars of Judaism, several Businesses calling themselves Three Pillars whatever and some stuff about Vampires, before I got bored. Regrettably nothing about The Three Pillars of OOP. This would suggest to me that the term has fallen out of use. I suppose that the question could be rephrased something like "What features make a language Object Oriented?" Just an opinion.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Googling red will give you a lot of hits if you don't put it in context. :-D
Henry Minute wrote:
This would suggest to me that the term has fallen out of use. I suppose that the question could be rephrased something like "What features make a language Object Oriented?"
This is exactly what I was wondering when I originally posted the question.
Mike Lasseter
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mr_lasseter wrote:
Is it too much to ask for both? And yes I could answer the question, although to be honest I did have a hard time remembering what the 'I' stood for.
I tend to subscribe to the Guerrilla Guide[^] when doing interviews. Knowing the definitions of things like SOLID, OO Pillars etc. is book regurgitation. I want to know how someone applies said techniques, how they architect an application, what patterns do they commonly use, do they consider the absence of source control the 8th deadly sin, do they practice TDD & CI, can they design their own containers, etc. These are all questions which draw upon their past experiences instead of providing the definitions of academic terminology.
Todd Smith
Point taken. Unfortunately, if we only hired people who can design their own container we wouldn't have hired anyone. We haven't been to successfully finding people who practice TDD or CI...
Mike Lasseter
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Just curious as to everyone thoughts on asking OO if developers they know the three pillars of Object Oriented Programming. Our company has been interviewing lately and not many developers (some considered to be senior) can answer this question. Is this uncommon knowledge?
Mike Lasseter
I hate those kind of questions and I don't ask such question. Here is how I interview developers. After casual talk to warm the interviewee, I hand him/her paper and pencil and ask a hypothetical question. Suppose you are a builder and I want to build house. Now, if you may, can you please build me a house? then I watch what fellows. Many times, I have seen people start drawing house. That is
redflag to me. What I expect them is to ask lots of questions. What kind of house? how many bedrooms? How many bathroom.... you got the picture. The idea is before the developer jumps and starts writing code he/she needs to understand the problem at hand. I see them how they approach the problem at hand. As far as the syntax and symantec of a language I don't care too much. I ask them to make sure they know the language, but to me as long as they know and can proof it to me, I don't expect them to know everything by heart. In fact whenever I ask a programming question, I tell them it is sufficient to show me pseudo code.Yusuf Oh didn't you notice, analogous to square roots, they recently introduced rectangular, circular, and diamond roots to determine the size of the corresponding shapes when given the area. Luc Pattyn[^]
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encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance. So perhaps a better question would be what features make a language object oriented?
Mike Lasseter
mr_lasseter wrote:
encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance
d@nish wrote:
Are you speaking of abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, modularity and inheritance?
The short answer is all of them. :rolleyes: Judging people on their recollection of text book answers gets you people who are good at reciting text book answers but not always good at delivering production grade solutions. Some people are great at text book answers but couldn't deliver working software if their life depended on it. Others may not know the technical terms but have evolved over the years and deliver professional grade software without giving a lot of thought how to describe it technically. Unless the person is going to be the architect, or are so set in their ways that they cannot learn new things, I would go with experience. I have worked in an R&D environment for most of my career and would trade two MTS (member of the technical staff) for a good TA (technical associate) or better yet an STA (senior technical associate) any day. When it comes to crunch time, which all projects eventually come to, the TA or STA will deliver, while the MTS will still be debating which the best approach to take is.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Just curious as to everyone thoughts on asking OO if developers they know the three pillars of Object Oriented Programming. Our company has been interviewing lately and not many developers (some considered to be senior) can answer this question. Is this uncommon knowledge?
Mike Lasseter
Are C++ and/or C# object oriented languages? :)
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
I had an interview on Friday. It was for a project on .Net 3.5. I have not worked on anything above 2.0. So I was tested on my knowledge of framework. There came this question and I could not recall modularity. Rest all, I was spot on and was in. Now I will be trained on framework 3.5 and then I would work on it. That's great for me as I have been working in VB6 for almost a year now. And that too after working in .Net 2.0 for 1 Yr 7 months.
जय हिंद
modified on Saturday, March 21, 2009 5:00 PM
-
mr_lasseter wrote:
Is it too much to ask for both? And yes I could answer the question, although to be honest I did have a hard time remembering what the 'I' stood for.
I tend to subscribe to the Guerrilla Guide[^] when doing interviews. Knowing the definitions of things like SOLID, OO Pillars etc. is book regurgitation. I want to know how someone applies said techniques, how they architect an application, what patterns do they commonly use, do they consider the absence of source control the 8th deadly sin, do they practice TDD & CI, can they design their own containers, etc. These are all questions which draw upon their past experiences instead of providing the definitions of academic terminology.
Todd Smith
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Are C++ and/or C# object oriented languages? :)
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesJimmyRopes wrote:
Are C++ and/or C# object oriented languages?
Not if you ask a SmallTalker (not that there are many of them left)
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JimmyRopes wrote:
Are C++ and/or C# object oriented languages?
Not if you ask a SmallTalker (not that there are many of them left)
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Not if you ask a SmallTalker (not that there are many of them left)
What's a "SmallTalker"? :confused:
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Not if you ask a SmallTalker (not that there are many of them left)
What's a "SmallTalker"? :confused:
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesSomeone who wrote code in SmallTalk
Mike Lasseter
