If I'm quizzing you as part of a technical intervew [modified]
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nice!
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
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You don't get an out by telling me my questions are a bunch of book learning. :sigh: [edit] I think my tone is throwing this discussion off. If I was getting waylaid in the middle of an interview, I'd figure out a way to work my message into my answers, not get confrontational with the interviewer. There were number of other things going on, this one was just a surprise to me. [/edit]
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
modified on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 4:48 PM
I always worry when people start talking about "in the real world" or "not too much of the high falutin' theory" or "too much book learning" a) We don't live in the real world, I mean we do, but our work doesn't it lives in computers b) The computers rely on & implement the high falutin' theory, so a knowledge of that just might come in handy. Got my 5. OT, you are named in this[^] thread asking about licensing on an old article of yours.
Sort of a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and Dilbert.[^]
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A Dead ringer for Kate Winslett[^] -
In SQL server it's also called an indexed view. I used both terms for the interview.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
I once tried to create an indexed view in SQL server, there were so many dependancies I chucked the concept out. I imagine the join questions would have been fairly well received, they tend to be used often.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I do not know anything about what questions you asked to know whether they were bookish or not. Personally, I do not have any faith in bookish questions. Because a smart developer, if he/she does not know certain thing, can easily learn them. What I try to do is to evaluate a candidate on 2 things :- 1. Ability to solve problems - nothing is better than a simple coding problem. It does not matter whether the candidate gets the answer right but the way he approaches the problem reveals a lot about him/her. 2. Ability to learn - How quickly he can learn that is also obvious from coding interviews. In the end, a programmer is there to solve problems not how much knowledge he has. I have not seen anyone who knows everything or remembers everything. I know of a programmer who had no idea on how to right Oracle PL/SQL procedures. He did not work on Oracle before. But he was tasked with writing an important piece of logic. Not only he learned it within a week but he did such an excellent job that puts many full-time Oracle developers to shame.
I kept trying to find common ground, but I'm not going to sink down to a web developer knowing about SQL injection, and answering that they've never used generics, or knowing what a lambda expression is.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
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I always worry when people start talking about "in the real world" or "not too much of the high falutin' theory" or "too much book learning" a) We don't live in the real world, I mean we do, but our work doesn't it lives in computers b) The computers rely on & implement the high falutin' theory, so a knowledge of that just might come in handy. Got my 5. OT, you are named in this[^] thread asking about licensing on an old article of yours.
Sort of a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and Dilbert.[^]
-Or-
A Dead ringer for Kate Winslett[^]Thanks for the heads up. I definitely get where everyone is coming from. I've worked with way too many people that have been bitten by the enterprisey bug and are too damn proud of their last programming artifice. I focused on SQL because the candidate had that as a strong point on their resume. He had never used generics before, and didn't know what a lambda was, and our code has them all over the place. I don't expect anyone to be an expert at everything, but you have to set the bar somewhere. I was more offended that he criticized the questions in the middle of an interview. Who does that?
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
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I once tried to create an indexed view in SQL server, there were so many dependancies I chucked the concept out. I imagine the join questions would have been fairly well received, they tend to be used often.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
If this was for a basic developer position it never would have come up. It's not like I'm scoring this crap I just wanted to know if he knew the concept. I probably should have skipped it after he didn't know the difference between clustered and non clustered indexes.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
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I kept trying to find common ground, but I'm not going to sink down to a web developer knowing about SQL injection, and answering that they've never used generics, or knowing what a lambda expression is.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
Andy Brummer wrote:
...or knowing what a lambda expression is.
So how does knowing what 1/3 of the Revenge Of The Nerds fraternity is help in a job interview?
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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If this was for a basic developer position it never would have come up. It's not like I'm scoring this crap I just wanted to know if he knew the concept. I probably should have skipped it after he didn't know the difference between clustered and non clustered indexes.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
Andy Brummer wrote:
I probably should have skipped it after he didn't know the difference between clustered and non clustered indexes
Thank you for your time, we will contact you if you are successful. Tthere are some questions that you just have to know at a senior level. I hate interviewing, I know I'm lousy at it and I do manage to get out of it most times.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I do not know anything about what questions you asked to know whether they were bookish or not. Personally, I do not have any faith in bookish questions. Because a smart developer, if he/she does not know certain thing, can easily learn them. What I try to do is to evaluate a candidate on 2 things :- 1. Ability to solve problems - nothing is better than a simple coding problem. It does not matter whether the candidate gets the answer right but the way he approaches the problem reveals a lot about him/her. 2. Ability to learn - How quickly he can learn that is also obvious from coding interviews. In the end, a programmer is there to solve problems not how much knowledge he has. I have not seen anyone who knows everything or remembers everything. I know of a programmer who had no idea on how to right Oracle PL/SQL procedures. He did not work on Oracle before. But he was tasked with writing an important piece of logic. Not only he learned it within a week but he did such an excellent job that puts many full-time Oracle developers to shame.
I'm curious, what kind of coding problems do you give? Also, you don't expect candidates claiming X years of experience in technology Y to know about it, with the expected level of competence varying by years of experience?
Regards Senthil _____________________________ My Home Page |My Blog | My Articles | My Flickr | WinMacro
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I'm curious, what kind of coding problems do you give? Also, you don't expect candidates claiming X years of experience in technology Y to know about it, with the expected level of competence varying by years of experience?
Regards Senthil _____________________________ My Home Page |My Blog | My Articles | My Flickr | WinMacro
To start with I give them extremely simple problems. Of course, I allow people to pick programming language that they are comfortable with. The programming problems are of the same level as the ones I ask in my Friday Programming Quiz. Depending on the experience, people approach the problem is different ways. Usually, people are nervous in the interview, so to discount that I later send problems via email that they can solve in a day or two and come back to me and discuss the solution.