3 ms·

It certainly is marvelously designed, not too amazing considering that Carpenter knew that it is one of the possible questions and he prepared his answer before

It certainly is marvelously designed, not too amazing considering that Carpenter knew that it is one of the possible questions and he prepared his answer beforehand. Anyway, judging by the provided code, Carpenter should have done only basic alteration to the original code in the marked spots (// ???) which should have been enough for the interviewer, so that they might have moved on to the next question if there was one: > Christine looked at the solution on the board, frowned, and glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, where has the time gone?”

thewarrior 12y ago
If this happened in real life it would be frikkin awesome. The interviewer would be flabbergasted. There are a couple of other blog posts in this genre : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-would-feynman-do.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-... http://vk.com/note736369_9773341 http://vk.com/note736369_9773341
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  Another interpretation would be the candidate wasted all their time over engineering when a quicker solution would have done just fine. No wonder he never heard back.
  - nilkn 12y ago
    You'd be concerned that he tried to show off in a problem that was clearly highly contrived for the purposes of an interview? Well, I'd be concerned too. But just ending the interview process immediately is incredibly naive. If you see a candidate do something like this, your reaction is probably a mixture of (1) being impressed; (2) being wary that they're always going to be like this. So what do you do? You ask them about (2). But of course, that's not going to happen in this example, because the company is implied to have an incredibly rigid interview process which cannot be modified or adapted at all on the spot.
    - madeofpalk 12y ago
      The interviewer ran out of time - there was no choice but to end immediately, so you would have to either invite them back or call them later. eh. too much effort. Lets just hire the other guy.
- Ronsenshi 12y ago
  Yeah, I imagine that would be quite weird.

thewarrior 12y ago

If this happened in real life it would be frikkin awesome. The interviewer would be flabbergasted. There are a couple of other blog posts in this genre : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-would-feynman-do.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-... http://vk.com/note736369_9773341 http://vk.com/note736369_9773341

madeofpalk 12y ago
Another interpretation would be the candidate wasted all their time over engineering when a quicker solution would have done just fine. No wonder he never heard back.
- nilkn 12y ago
  You'd be concerned that he tried to show off in a problem that was clearly highly contrived for the purposes of an interview? Well, I'd be concerned too. But just ending the interview process immediately is incredibly naive. If you see a candidate do something like this, your reaction is probably a mixture of (1) being impressed; (2) being wary that they're always going to be like this. So what do you do? You ask them about (2). But of course, that's not going to happen in this example, because the company is implied to have an incredibly rigid interview process which cannot be modified or adapted at all on the spot.
  - madeofpalk 12y ago
    The interviewer ran out of time - there was no choice but to end immediately, so you would have to either invite them back or call them later. eh. too much effort. Lets just hire the other guy.
Ronsenshi 12y ago
Yeah, I imagine that would be quite weird.