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> Hint: there is no safe answer. I'd be interested in hearing what you're thinking of -- but if you're right that actually makes it a perfect interview questio

> Hint: there is no safe answer. I'd be interested in hearing what you're thinking of -- but if you're right that actually makes it a perfect interview question. The baseline implementation is simple, but you can keep pointing out deficiencies and observe how the candidate attacks the revised problem. The point of interview coding problems isn't to produces production-quality code with no preparation, it's to gain some insight in the way the candidate attacks a problem, particularly when approaching the edge of his abilities. At one of the interviews I went through for my current job, I completely tanked on a question that fished for a particular design pattern. But while I didn't figure out I needed to use that particular pattern, I was able to participate actively in the discussion on how and why the solution I chose wasn't optimal.

Retric 16y ago
Simply put based the type job your applying for there is types of solutions they are going to want to see. Without knowing more about the job you may be thinking frameworks while they want ASM.
- ori_b 16y ago
  Then ask for elaboration. It's a discussion, not a monologue.
  - Retric 16y ago
    Of course, but that's not a year one problem. If I say how much energy does a 10kg rock gain falling 50m in a 1G gravity field you can just solve it. However, when handed a simple programming problem the natural instinct is to ask for just a little more information. I find many programmers have issues quickly context switching between thinking about the problem, discovering what the constraints are, coding a solution, and then debugging that solution. Ask them to do it on a blackboard under a little pressure and they can't do it. The problem is the better programmers often do worse in these situations because they think about more things at each step so they need to keep purging more ideas.

Retric 16y ago

Simply put based the type job your applying for there is types of solutions they are going to want to see. Without knowing more about the job you may be thinking frameworks while they want ASM.

ori_b 16y ago
Then ask for elaboration. It's a discussion, not a monologue.
- Retric 16y ago
  Of course, but that's not a year one problem. If I say how much energy does a 10kg rock gain falling 50m in a 1G gravity field you can just solve it. However, when handed a simple programming problem the natural instinct is to ask for just a little more information. I find many programmers have issues quickly context switching between thinking about the problem, discovering what the constraints are, coding a solution, and then debugging that solution. Ask them to do it on a blackboard under a little pressure and they can't do it. The problem is the better programmers often do worse in these situations because they think about more things at each step so they need to keep purging more ideas.