ericlippert

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61.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Well, my intention was not to sound pompous, but writing is hard, you know? Thanks for your cogent critique of my tone.
62.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Well as I said in the article, the intention of the question is emphatically not a "gotcha" about how they are actually doing. It's intended to find out if there are any problems that need addressing.
63.
by ericlippert 11y ago
These are good points. The number of candidates who have told me that they want a computer rather than a whiteboard is small but not zero. I do give the same few problems over and over again, and I do take extensive notes, but I am not keep
64.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Thanks for writing that up; really interesting stuff. I agree with many of the critiques you make. I suspect that it may be easier to get the sort of standard process you describe implemented in a relatively small organization that has a re
65.
by ericlippert 11y ago
That's interesting feedback, thanks. I have found that most of the time people are happy to talk about their work, but I have also encountered the flustered reaction you describe.
66.
by ericlippert 11y ago
I usually take a photo of the candidate's work, but not to evaluate whether it is correct or not; I already know that. I take the photo primarily because the board is about to be erased for the next candidate, and I want to make sure t
67.
by ericlippert 11y ago
I agree; a problem I often give -- which I will discuss on my blog next week -- is "here's an existing solution to a problem, it is full of security holes and bad programming practices, describe to me some techniques you would use
68.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Oh yes really. I have had candidates with PhDs in computer science who had a deep understanding of static analysis of programming languages, but who did not know how many bytes were in a pointer on a 64 bit operating system, who thought tha
69.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Asking people to solve riddles is of course silly, and everyone I know at Microsoft stopped doing that fifteen years ago. I have had several candidates with established work history who were turned down on the basis of their coding work dur
70.
by ericlippert 11y ago
I have tried that as well in the eleven years since I wrote this article. It is much more work for me to set up a development environment, get the monitoring software working, blah blah blah, and there are many points of failure, but if the
71.
by ericlippert 11y ago
I take it into account by asking a problem that is so simple and straightforward that you do not need google, intellisense, or any other tool to solve the problem. As I mentioned in another comment above, I have asked problems as simple as
72.
by ericlippert 11y ago
The problems I ask are not amenable to solution by searching Google, and frankly, I am not actually interested in the solution. The problems I give are so easy that someone who cannot solve them by writing the code from top to bottom in one
73.
by ericlippert 11y ago
Something I did not mention in this article -- which I note I wrote eleven years ago -- is that in the time since I have occasionally had candidates say "I get anxious when writing on a whiteboard, can we do technical questions on my c
74.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Indeed, though the iron crucible I use gets hot enough to be red hot. Whether the molten aluminum has a faint red glow about it or not I cannot say; I don't usually melt it at night.
75.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Many parts of machine tools like lathes need to be as flat as possible, because if the surface of the tool is not flat then that error is transferred to the object you are tooling. To get, say, a lathe bed flat, you buy or make a reference
76.
by ericlippert 12y ago
As I mentioned in another comment, ironworking requires taking things to the next level in a pretty serious way if you want to cast it. Iron melts at 2800 degrees, you need ceramic crucibles, it is heavy, and so on. I'm not going to e
77.
by ericlippert 12y ago
I'm going to try to get good at working aluminum before I move on to iron; that's a whole other level. Fortunately I have some friends who are master ironworkers so I will go to them for advice should I eventually get there!
78.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Exactly. It is extremely inexpensive -- the majority of the aluminum I melt I found abandoned on the side of the road -- it melts at only 1200 degrees F which is an easy charcoal fire. It is easy to machine, doesn't corrode, is hard en
79.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Correct; the oxide is not a problem. There's not much of it, it melts at a much higher temperature than the pure metal, and it floats, so you just scoop it off before you pour. Whether oxidation or reduction is taking place during the
80.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it. Indeed, I did a lot of research on home foundry setups and tool building before I started this project, and I am deliberately going slowly and carefully.
81.
by ericlippert 12y ago
Indeed, I watched all those youtube channels for quite a long time before deciding to build a foundry; there is excellent stuff out there! The Gingery books are really very good for books , but for a lot of these tasks it is so much more c
82.
by ericlippert 13y ago
On a more personal note, I'll add that I find it ironic that you accuse me of meanness, contempt and belittling others, because I find that rather mean, contemptuous and belittling. In the future if you have a problem with something th
83.
by ericlippert 13y ago
I do not hold students in contempt. My article is an honest attempt to help students, because, as I note in the first few paragraphs that you object to, their current course of action is one that is not helping themselves. When I was a CS s
84.
by ericlippert 14y ago
I am neither high-profile nor an executive.
85.
by ericlippert 14y ago
There were many factors that led to this decision. I described the primary factor in my posting: I've been at this job for sixteen years at the same company, I am turning 40, and it is very common for people at that age to want to make a ch
86.
by ericlippert 15y ago
I'm glad you enjoyed my answers; however, I am never intending to come across as smug. It is difficult to get across subtleties in an impoverished text-only medium; it has certainly been my experience that instructive and constructive crit
87.
by ericlippert 16y ago
Of course Feynman knows the intended answer. He's way ahead of the interviewer, and is having some fun with him by deliberately avoiding the "correct" answer.
88.
by ericlippert 16y ago
For the record: I intended no disrespect; I have immense respect and admiration for Feynman. And for the record: I do not think that I am as smart as Feynman; that would be ridiculous. The piece was intended as satire, and is in a long trad