Timeline for How much help should I give during technical interviews?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
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| Feb 21, 2014 at 1:07 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Parker Phinney | ||
| Dec 30, 2012 at 3:25 | history | edited | Scott Whitlock | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Rolled back part of SamtheBrand's edit (he removed last sentence, which was more than just correcting punctuation, etc.)
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| Dec 29, 2012 at 6:32 | comment | added | Erik Reppen | @alex.p There's a difference between memorizing formulas or powers of 2 by rote and being able to build on what you know. If you know how to get the area of a square, it shouldn't take a mental titan to get the surface area of a cube although I did once see this stump an entire calculus class. Sometimes it's as much about being willing to try in spite of your own perceived limitations that makes a programmer as much as what you've already learned. If, say, you remember how to get the area of a circle, you might feel silly when you google that cylinder formula. | |
| S Dec 28, 2012 at 20:26 | history | suggested | samthebrand | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited for clarity, copyedited
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| Dec 28, 2012 at 20:14 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Dec 28, 2012 at 20:26 | |||||
| Aug 6, 2012 at 12:24 | comment | added | alex.p | @whatsisname: "there are some things that everyone should know just by virtue of the fact of having seen it so many times." I've never needed to know the volume of a cylinder in my career nor have I ever needed to know the powers of 2. You may well need these answers on a day to day basis but you make the assumption that every developer does when it's entirely down to the domain you work in. I develop software for the finance domain and I don't expect people to know what the difference between a payment and market currency is or what a market service provider is but I use this knowledge daily. | |
| Aug 5, 2012 at 23:27 | comment | added | mattnz | Basic is may be - it should still be in the requirements and if not, it would be professional and prudent for a developer to confirm it. Ask to calculate a great circle distance between two cities - the method does not change, just the formula. One of the things I am looking for with candidates is how many assumptions they make - Volume of a cylinder is a good one. "How many liters of water does a x*y cylinder hold" - Correct answer "Is that the internal measurement, and if not, how thick are the walls" | |
| Aug 3, 2012 at 21:40 | comment | added | Joel Cornett | @whatisname: While one indication of a competent developer could be his or her mastery of basic mathematics formulas, the two are not mutually exclusive and this is by no means a reliable indicator of someone's ability. | |
| Aug 3, 2012 at 20:25 | vote | accept | kojiro | ||
| Aug 3, 2012 at 14:28 | comment | added | Izkata |
@whatsisname I know volume of a cylinder is h * area of circle, but area of a circle doesn't stick in my head very well. On the other hand, volume of a sphere ((4/3) pi * r^3) sticks in my head very well because I once got bored and actually derived it during calculus class. So yeah, I agree with the others - you're just plain wrong. Rote memorization doesn't get very far.
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| Aug 2, 2012 at 23:18 | comment | added | ardent | @Job, you're correct in that. I was thinking in terms of general volume, and thus overcomplicated the issue. In the end though, it still becomes a non-issue. If that's the only thing hanging them up, and they have a great grasp of actually how to solve the problem, why not hire them? I wouldn't want to hire someone who could instantly pull 2^67 out in a split second, but can't tell me how they would go about implementing a quick and dirty insertion sort in the language of their choice. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 22:59 | comment | added | ardent | @whatsisname, sure by virtue of me needing to juggle byte to KB to MB to etc conversions I could tell you quick and dirty ways to figure out 2^32, which is 4 GB or 4096 MB. But I wouldn't know the volume of a cylinder, granted I could quickly derive it based on what I know about circles and calculus, but I could also quickly google it for you and save us both time. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 22:45 | comment | added | whatsisname | @ardentsonata: there are some things that everyone should know just by virtue of the fact of having seen it so many times. It's similar how everyone should just know that 2^8 is 256. I'm not saying everyone should have to memorize powers of two, it should just happen on its own from repeatedly seeing or dealing with it. A person won't be very useful if they have to look up absolutely everything. There is some stuff that a competent developer just knows off the top of their head. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 22:36 | comment | added | ardent | @whatsisname, that is an incredibly arrogant approach to the situation. computer programmers are supposed to be solving problems, not memorizing every single mathematical formula (no matter how trivial) that comes there way. It's how they end up solving the problem that matters, not how much they didn't know at the start. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 22:22 | comment | added | whatsisname | @MichaelDurrant because its such a trivial formula, its one that everyone is just expected to know, like the Pythagorean Theorem. And even if you did manage to forget, you should be derive it in your head in a few seconds anyway. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 22:15 | comment | added | Michael Durrant | @Job, I learned the volume of a cylinder 40 years ago and I've been programming since then, solving real business problems but never had to use that formula so I've forgotten it but I can google it in 5 (maybe 6) seconds. Why would you not hire me? | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 20:47 | comment | added | user53019 | +1 for the approach. It's good to offer up the details that can be quickly googled, but it's fair to hold back from suggesting actual approaches. | |
| Aug 2, 2012 at 20:38 | history | answered | Scott Whitlock | CC BY-SA 3.0 |