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> Or maybe he's old enough that he's used to thinking in assembly "I'm sorry, I don't actually know C, can I show you this in assembly instead"? > I have no i

> Or maybe he's old enough that he's used to thinking in assembly "I'm sorry, I don't actually know C, can I show you this in assembly instead"? > I have no idea what a linked list is. I cool thing about the linked list is that it's probably the simplest data-structure in all of computer science. I can explain to you what they are in less than 30 seconds, provided you have even the faintest grasp on how computers actually work. > I could be wrong (often am), but anyone who has done instrumentation but has never encountered a thermocouple... well, that would be a very unusual history. This is exactly what I'm talking about: A good programmer who can't understand and reason about a linked list, that's very unusual.

neltnerb 12y ago
Haha, thanks for the schooling. I looked it up and it turns out I studied them in scheme back in the day. I just didn't know the term, so I'd (probably) come off as incompetent in an interview where asked. > This is exactly what I'm talking about: A good programmer who can't understand and reason about a linked list, that's very unusual. Well put then, I say rather chagrined ;-) My intended point though was that sometimes you can't tell how good of an engineer someone is by asking them about things you know. Better to ask them to talk about what they know. But that's not very controversial I'd hope!