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It is disrespectful, but it is a proxy test for how many hours you have spent reading and writing code in that language.
by yobbo 5y ago
It is disrespectful, but it is a proxy test for how many hours you have spent reading and writing code in that language.
- kamaal 5y agoA while back Indian companies were notoriously famous for giving questions from Let us C, from Yashwant Kanitkar. The questions go like, What is the output of the expression below? int i = 10; ****++&&*+p; Followed by a myriad of options. Including things like Syntax error. Not sure how this measures language proficiency.
- lloydatkinson 5y agoThat probably explains a few things...
- rdedev 5y agoMy diskile of C and C++ were particularly due to such questions. Its always in C or C++ I see such convoluted questions
- mlindner 5y agoI've been working in C for most of my career and I've never heard of such questions. They're not in any textbook I'm familiar with. In fact they're incredibly pointless and irrelevant.
- roland35 5y agoOoof... I have done a few double pointers in my day *, but anything beyond that seems like bad practice!
- merlincorey 5y ago> What is the output of the expression below? > int i = 10; > **++&&*+p; > Followed by a myriad of options. Including things like Syntax error. I consider myself fluent in C and to a lesser extent C++ -- that's a Syntax Error in C, at least. This isn't a particularly difficult one to spot, but I can understand how it would be if you weren't very familiar the language.
- kamaal 5y agoThey mix the correct ones and wrong ones in a way, in a time constrained situation. Eventually your eyes will give being a lexical analyser.
- Bayart 5y agoI wonder how many Indians partake in the IOCCC [1]. [1]: https://www.ioccc.org/ https://www.ioccc.org/
- aix1 5y agoThat's an easy one -- p is undefined. :) (/me runs away)
- sokoloff 5y agoWhat about it is disrespectful? It seems to me that it’s testing for something relevant and I don’t see it as otherwise bad (abusive, pure trivia, easily Google-able, etc)
- yobbo 5y agoIt is akin to giving a spelling quiz to an author. There is a level of decorum required when dealing with professionals. A junior verbally pointing out a syntax mistake reveals a naiveté about the competency itself and "the mission" of the field. In this interview, I would have liked to receive two code examples (that might contain errors) and discuss benefits according various objectives. If the interviewer makes it clear that pointing out syntax mistake is not rude, I could mention them in passing. This demonstrates not only attention to details but also decorum.
- sokoloff 5y agoIf I claim fluency in a non-native language because that’s a relevant qualification for the job, testing me on it is fair game IMO. That’s true whether I’m an author writing in German, a newscaster reporting in Italian, or a programmer coding in C++.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoOK then, I'm not fluent in any languages, I merely use them to create products that people buy for money.
- PeterisP 5y agoDefinitely not - if an author has written a book in German (even if it's not their native language) then giving them a German test is definitely insulting, the same applies for a newscaster in Italian if they have done reporting in Italian previously. What you say applies if you're hiring people for their first position at that task (e.g. the author writing their first book in German or a newscaster who has never done reporting in Italian professionally). If you're hiring people at some hypothetical "level 10" then your interview needs to discriminate between "level 9 or less" people and "level 10 or more" people, but asking them to assert that they meet "level 1" implies that they might not, and that implication is literally insulting.
- naruvimama 5y agoI usually write python code, I stick to pythonic styles, consistency and good practices. If there is an error, I can quickly figure out what that is and what I should do to fix it. I would know why the error occurred. Beyond that deliberate interview practice is the only way to get a lot of interview questions right.