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The halting problem, logic, complexity classes, type systems, evaluation models etc are basic concepts. So I'd rather be surprised if anyone who's said to be co
by andreyf 16y ago
The halting problem, logic, complexity classes, type systems, evaluation models etc are basic concepts. So I'd rather be surprised if anyone who's said to be competent could not explain those.
I haven't asked for it in interviews, but from my experience of about two dozen technical interviews and phone screens, I'd say only 1 or 2 people could tell you even a general definition of "halting problem" and "evaluation models".
So this is interesting - where are you located? Does your experience stem from interviewing in industry, or your coworkers at a Stanford research lab? ;)
- vog 16y agoHere in Germany I guess the rate (1 or 2 out of two dozen) is similar. But that's not because our universities don't do their job. It's because most software developers didn't (or failed to) study CS in the first place. They either didn't even start it, or they dropped out, or they studied something else that doesn't deliver the theoretical basics (e.g. "IT systems engineerings" and other things with expressively long names). However, there's such a big demand for software developers that they come quite far without any formal qualification. And most of them do quite a good job! ... until things get more complicated. (FTR: I'm a student at the Humboldt University of Berlin, but I think the other universities have similar standards. I'm also co-founder of a small software dev/hosting company.)