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What are you trying to prove by asking this question to candidates? Does it matter? Does not understanding what is happening under the hood prevent them from

by dudul 9y ago

What are you trying to prove by asking this question to candidates? Does it matter? Does not understanding what is happening under the hood prevent them from using them correctly?

mountaineer 9y ago
Good question, and one of the reasons I'm posting to gauge if this is really a valid interview question. What I'm trying to understand in the interview is how deep their knowledge goes in the stack, to your point, these are not DBA jobs. It matters a little, to at least understand the trade-offs and how they are used to improve performance of high volume sites.
- dudul 9y ago
  Understood. Yeah if your goal is for you to find out if they know how to use the tool it's one thing. It would be different if you were really expecting an in-depth description of how they are implemented by the DB engine. I use a lot of things daily that I would be incapable of fully explain, as long as I know how and when to use them I think it's enough :)
- lloeki 9y ago
  I'd say this is a very valid question, as with all interview questions, how it is answered matters more than what is answered (unless the interviewee makes a gross error to the point that it's fairly obvious they should not be hired). Interview questions are first and foremost windows into a thought process, not pop quiz. Even for a front end job, this may hint at how much someone has a view of the global stack and/or general CS knowledge, or how they react stepping out of their comfort zone. Maybe then your question here is not so much about an eventual interviewee answer but more about how to set your own expectations.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I don't think you have to be able to implement one. But you should absolutely know why you would want to use an index and also you should be aware of possible drawbacks. I have seen quite a few projects where they thought they need more hardware and sharding only because they didn't have even a basic idea of database tuning.

by dudul 9y ago

What are you trying to prove by asking this question to candidates? Does it matter? Does not understanding what is happening under the hood prevent them from using them correctly?

mountaineer 9y ago

Good question, and one of the reasons I'm posting to gauge if this is really a valid interview question. What I'm trying to understand in the interview is how deep their knowledge goes in the stack, to your point, these are not DBA jobs. It matters a little, to at least understand the trade-offs and how they are used to improve performance of high volume sites.

dudul 9y ago
Understood. Yeah if your goal is for you to find out if they know how to use the tool it's one thing. It would be different if you were really expecting an in-depth description of how they are implemented by the DB engine. I use a lot of things daily that I would be incapable of fully explain, as long as I know how and when to use them I think it's enough :)
lloeki 9y ago
I'd say this is a very valid question, as with all interview questions, how it is answered matters more than what is answered (unless the interviewee makes a gross error to the point that it's fairly obvious they should not be hired). Interview questions are first and foremost windows into a thought process, not pop quiz. Even for a front end job, this may hint at how much someone has a view of the global stack and/or general CS knowledge, or how they react stepping out of their comfort zone. Maybe then your question here is not so much about an eventual interviewee answer but more about how to set your own expectations.

maxxxxx 9y ago

I don't think you have to be able to implement one. But you should absolutely know why you would want to use an index and also you should be aware of possible drawbacks. I have seen quite a few projects where they thought they need more hardware and sharding only because they didn't have even a basic idea of database tuning.