Another smart ass interviewer
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It sounds a heck of a lot like an interview I had a while back. The first thing the interviewer (22 year old - in the field for 12 months) told me was that he had tried to hack/pen test my site ... that made be laugh in a way - but in the back of my mind I was thinking something darker... Anyways - this position was for web apps - so I asked him what types of server infrastructure they had - and he told me he did not know?!? How can you write web apps without knowing what type of server and environment you are dealing with in the first place is beyond me... Into the interview, I got asked - ok - write a function (on paper) that will accept an integer and ensure that the int had not been passed in before. (C#) So, first I write it using a class with generic list of ints and using the .contains(newInt) type thing. He said no, that's no good. So, then, I proceeded to do it 2 other ways. Finally he said - that's wrong - and the correct way was to use a hashtable and catch the error when the collision occurred. Now, if you know what is going on under the hood with SEH and stack frames when using try / catch - and the overhead of a hashtable ... (referring to what C does with SEH under the hood) - I had to scratch my head. So - I proceeded to explain what was going on under the hood, and this little know it all was put aside and it was downhill from there. Last I heard, his team brought the company to its knees for 3 days for some weird coding they were doing. (public facing SOA).
My retort to said interviewer: "Wow. Just ... wow. Considering Exceptions are expensive to throw vs. the cost of a lookup, they should only be used to catch, well, exceptional cases. They should never be used as a dependancy in the normal course of an algorithm." Then I get up and thank him for his time, the opportunity, and decline the position and dance my way out the door as fast as possible.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak -
My retort to said interviewer: "Wow. Just ... wow. Considering Exceptions are expensive to throw vs. the cost of a lookup, they should only be used to catch, well, exceptional cases. They should never be used as a dependancy in the normal course of an algorithm." Then I get up and thank him for his time, the opportunity, and decline the position and dance my way out the door as fast as possible.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave KreskowiakDave Kreskowiak wrote:
and dance my way out the door as fast as possible
Yes, but what kind of dance? Electric Slide? Robot? Boot Scootin Boogie?
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
and dance my way out the door as fast as possible
Yes, but what kind of dance? Electric Slide? Robot? Boot Scootin Boogie?
Andrew Rissing wrote:
Boot Scootin Boogie?
sounds like the fastest and most direct to the door...
Treat stressful situations like a dog, if you can't eat it, play with it or screw it, then just piss on it and walk away. Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow.
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Andrew Rissing wrote:
Boot Scootin Boogie?
sounds like the fastest and most direct to the door...
Treat stressful situations like a dog, if you can't eat it, play with it or screw it, then just piss on it and walk away. Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow.
Ah yes, the B-line.
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My retort to said interviewer: "Wow. Just ... wow. Considering Exceptions are expensive to throw vs. the cost of a lookup, they should only be used to catch, well, exceptional cases. They should never be used as a dependancy in the normal course of an algorithm." Then I get up and thank him for his time, the opportunity, and decline the position and dance my way out the door as fast as possible.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave KreskowiakI live in Waterloo - so you have a lot of kids coming out of university thinking they know it all and the world owes them everything..... they haven't lived through bringing a bunch of servers back up from hell yet.... they probably think that wireshark is a roach clip.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
and dance my way out the door as fast as possible
Yes, but what kind of dance? Electric Slide? Robot? Boot Scootin Boogie?
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
and dance my way out the door as fast as possible
Yes, but what kind of dance? Electric Slide? Robot? Boot Scootin Boogie?
-
My retort to said interviewer: "Wow. Just ... wow. Considering Exceptions are expensive to throw vs. the cost of a lookup, they should only be used to catch, well, exceptional cases. They should never be used as a dependancy in the normal course of an algorithm." Then I get up and thank him for his time, the opportunity, and decline the position and dance my way out the door as fast as possible.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak -
It sounds a heck of a lot like an interview I had a while back. The first thing the interviewer (22 year old - in the field for 12 months) told me was that he had tried to hack/pen test my site ... that made be laugh in a way - but in the back of my mind I was thinking something darker... Anyways - this position was for web apps - so I asked him what types of server infrastructure they had - and he told me he did not know?!? How can you write web apps without knowing what type of server and environment you are dealing with in the first place is beyond me... Into the interview, I got asked - ok - write a function (on paper) that will accept an integer and ensure that the int had not been passed in before. (C#) So, first I write it using a class with generic list of ints and using the .contains(newInt) type thing. He said no, that's no good. So, then, I proceeded to do it 2 other ways. Finally he said - that's wrong - and the correct way was to use a hashtable and catch the error when the collision occurred. Now, if you know what is going on under the hood with SEH and stack frames when using try / catch - and the overhead of a hashtable ... (referring to what C does with SEH under the hood) - I had to scratch my head. So - I proceeded to explain what was going on under the hood, and this little know it all was put aside and it was downhill from there. Last I heard, his team brought the company to its knees for 3 days for some weird coding they were doing. (public facing SOA).
We all know the correct and fastest implementation is to declare an array and check the index for a non zero value : )
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
and dance my way out the door as fast as possible
Yes, but what kind of dance? Electric Slide? Robot? Boot Scootin Boogie?
Electric Boogaloo!
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak -
It sounds a heck of a lot like an interview I had a while back. The first thing the interviewer (22 year old - in the field for 12 months) told me was that he had tried to hack/pen test my site ... that made be laugh in a way - but in the back of my mind I was thinking something darker... Anyways - this position was for web apps - so I asked him what types of server infrastructure they had - and he told me he did not know?!? How can you write web apps without knowing what type of server and environment you are dealing with in the first place is beyond me... Into the interview, I got asked - ok - write a function (on paper) that will accept an integer and ensure that the int had not been passed in before. (C#) So, first I write it using a class with generic list of ints and using the .contains(newInt) type thing. He said no, that's no good. So, then, I proceeded to do it 2 other ways. Finally he said - that's wrong - and the correct way was to use a hashtable and catch the error when the collision occurred. Now, if you know what is going on under the hood with SEH and stack frames when using try / catch - and the overhead of a hashtable ... (referring to what C does with SEH under the hood) - I had to scratch my head. So - I proceeded to explain what was going on under the hood, and this little know it all was put aside and it was downhill from there. Last I heard, his team brought the company to its knees for 3 days for some weird coding they were doing. (public facing SOA).
Rene Pilon wrote:
He said no, that's no good.
First thing I learned when helping out with technical interviews was to listen to what people are saying. You never know their method may not be the way I do it, but could offer another way of accomplishing the same task. Or maybe applied to another task…If you are not in constant learning mode then you’re probably doing it wrong (Okay I have worked with some people that I never agreed with, but they would spend weeks trying to figure out the simplest of tasks, you can only imagine the garbage they wrote).
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.