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> What happens between you typing a URL into your browser address bar? isn't a question that requires a canned response to be parroted back – it's a starting po

> What happens between you typing a URL into your browser address bar? isn't a question that requires a canned response to be parroted back – it's a starting point for a conversation about your knowledge of the web technology stack. It's not at all like there is a 'correct' answer, but demonstrating that you have a vague idea of how parts work, can identify gaps in your own knowledge, and make reasonable choices about how you might fill them. The one time I have actually been asked this question it sure felt like the interviewer was expecting a certain explanation rather than trying to start a conversation. Hard to tell, since that was the only technical question I got asked in that phone interview and they rejected me after that.

kafkaesq 9y ago
Yeah that's the thing - the vibe I get from these questions is, "Uh, I actually have no idea what to ask these candidates. I just know I better not fuck this up. So how about that question everyone was talking about on HN the other day? That way, if they don't give an answer as detailed as the one I vaguely read about, at least I'll know right away they're a complete moron."
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  A thousand times this. If somebody is going to ask those questions in an interview, at the bare minimum this person must know deeply about the subject, so they can recognize a correct answer and judge their quality. Instead, from how people talk about this (I've personally stopped interviewing for a while) it looks like everybody asking those has no idea what a correct answer looks like, and just expects candidates to follow a script. There are two things to note. First, it is incredibly unlikely that your interviewer knows deeply about both the HTTP protocol and databases implementation. Thus, anybody asking both is already full of bullshit. Second, it may be valuable to get a hold of the interviewer script and study it. People full of bullshit are not normally very creative, so the scripted answer should be easy to find at Google.

kafkaesq 9y ago

Yeah that's the thing - the vibe I get from these questions is, "Uh, I actually have no idea what to ask these candidates. I just know I better not fuck this up. So how about that question everyone was talking about on HN the other day? That way, if they don't give an answer as detailed as the one I vaguely read about, at least I'll know right away they're a complete moron."

marcosdumay 9y ago
A thousand times this. If somebody is going to ask those questions in an interview, at the bare minimum this person must know deeply about the subject, so they can recognize a correct answer and judge their quality. Instead, from how people talk about this (I've personally stopped interviewing for a while) it looks like everybody asking those has no idea what a correct answer looks like, and just expects candidates to follow a script. There are two things to note. First, it is incredibly unlikely that your interviewer knows deeply about both the HTTP protocol and databases implementation. Thus, anybody asking both is already full of bullshit. Second, it may be valuable to get a hold of the interviewer script and study it. People full of bullshit are not normally very creative, so the scripted answer should be easy to find at Google.