Interview question: What are the 5 classes you use most often?

Lost User

B413 wrote:

What is the best answer to this question

It would be the names of the classes that you use most often. Which classes those are probably going to depend on the projects and the types of projects you have worked on.

You can lead a developer to CodeProject, but you can't make them think. The Theory of Gravity was invented for the sole purpose of distracting you from investigating the scientific fact that the Earth sucks.

OriginalGriff

string All five of my top 5 would be string. You try building a UI without them!

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Lost User

System.Object System.Diagnostics.Debug System.Collections.Generic.List System.Convert System.Action

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Bastien Vandamme

I also responded Object first because of the word "used" then I answered things like String, List, Int and Debug. This seems to me so basic than I hesitated to answer that. Happy to see I'm not alone.

OriginalGriff

Do note that Int isn't a class: it's a struct...

You looking for sympathy? You'll find it in the dictionary, between sympathomimetic and sympatric (Page 1788, if it helps)

Bastien Vandamme

And what about System.Int16 System.Int32 System.Int64

Rob Philpott

Interesting that System.Convert is in there. I think I've only ever used it about twice (well directly, anyway).

Regards, Rob Philpott.

Pete OHanlon

And what did you answer?

OriginalGriff

In answer to your email (the question appears to have vanished): Int is a synonym for Int32, and Int16, Int32, and Int64 are all struct Have a look here: Using struct and class - what's that all about?[^] - it tries to explain the difference.

You looking for sympathy? You'll find it in the dictionary, between sympathomimetic and sympatric (Page 1788, if it helps)

Bastien Vandamme

I responded Object first then String, List, maybe Int even it's a struct and Debug, Console, something like that.

Lost User

Rob Philpott wrote:

Interesting that System.Convert is in there

Most people don't "like" the class. It's not interesting which is better, what is interesting is whether the *interviewer* would ask why I choose the class. Chances are, the question never comes.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
string s = null;

Console.WriteLine((string)s);             // default
Console.WriteLine("" + s);                // only if you'd rather go back to VB6
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(s));   // obvious
//Console.WriteLine(s.ToString());        // would explode
Console.ReadLine();

}

Now, an object that can contain null would not be casted to an Int - most people would parse it (and ignore any conversion errors). If prefer to convert it all if there's a lot of different types after another that need to be assigned. Otherwise, I go for casting.

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Joe Woodbury

This is where you wished you'd remember something absurdly obscure like AsyncStateMachineAttribute.

jschell

You use Object itself more than say String?

jschell

B413 wrote:

What is the best answer to this question?

If an interviewer thinks there is a best answer to that question then you can be sure that the interviewer doesn't know what they are doing. At best they don't understand the interview process and at worst they are arrogant. There are of course bad answers to that question - like "what is a class?"

Lost User

jschell wrote:

You use Object itself more than say String?

Dunno, I did not measure them - just the first five non-structs that popped into my head. A string is still a pointer to an array of bytes to me. Nothing fancy, just an address. Outside of that, it's a shame Interfaces were not included, it would have made the answer much more interesting. Given inheritance, I'd say I use a LOT of Object :)

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

ClimerChinna

system.web.ui system.io system.data system.configuration system.data.sql :)

ClimerChinna

System.web.ui system.io system.data system.data.sqlclient system.configuration :)