4 ms·
Most of the time, the factually correct answer to "why did you choose to work with Language X?" is "because when I arrived on the job, the existing software was
by mechanical_fish 12y ago
Most of the time, the factually correct answer to "why did you choose to work with Language X?" is "because when I arrived on the job, the existing software was implemented in X".
Is that a well-reasoned opinion? "I'd like to pay the rent this month" is a good reason. "The company doesn't have the time to reimplement working software on a different platform" is a good reason.
Of course, a well-socialized programmer understands that these answers, while truthful, are insufficient, and will have duly memorized a stock answer like "You pick C when you really need runtime performance and don't mind all the segmentation faults, otherwise you pick Java."
- eli 12y agoSure, that factually correct answer is fine, but you've changed the question to something less insightful. It wouldn't make sense to ask a candidate why they used language X for project Y unless they had a choice the decision. Most people don't. I know that. If you gave me that "stock answer" I'd ask followups. This isn't a trivia question with a secret "right answer" password. And hey, it's not the Worlds Greatest Interview Question, but I like it a whole lot better than "explain Quicksort" or "write out pseudocode for calculating a checksum on the whiteboard"