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I seem to always fail spoken interviews, but easily pass ones where I get to write code. As a particularly hilarious example, this spring I completely failed a

I seem to always fail spoken interviews, but easily pass ones where I get to write code. As a particularly hilarious example, this spring I completely failed a phone-screen on the subject of 3D graphics, then sometime later I released a 3D terrain engine that is apparently the best of its kind in Flash as of today (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1500338 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1500338). And I can't say I know much more about the subject now! I just tend to learn stuff "situationally" and immediately forget it when the problem is solved. That applies to concepts too, but it's like 100x worse for APIs: my work nowadays is mostly ActionScript and JavaScript, but I can't even fill a polygon in AS without having the reference open.

cyunker 16y ago
I'm the same way. If I'm not currently working in the specific area I'm given a question in, it can take me a few minutes to access that information in my head. And therefore, I look like I don't know the answer. I recently was in an interview for an iPhone dev job. I was prepared to talk about Objective-C/Apple SDK since I was working with that. However, they started digging into projects I had done at my last job (in Java). I struggled. I just hadn't thought about that work for a few years, and probably came off like I was embellishing my resume. After the interview, once I caught my breath and thought about it, all the details started coming back. Needless to say I was kicking myself for not being able to recall it sooner. Just the way my mind works....