On 10/10/09 14:51, quoth David Hardy: > This discussion reminds me of a number of IT job interviews I had where > the tech questions asked of me were delivered in a smug, condescending > tone, and if I didn't know every single facet of their infrastructure > when I walked through their door, then I must be a dolt and a fool. (I > only had 13 years in IT across multiple hw and sw platforms.) At one > interview right here in town, the interviewer actually smirked and > grinned at his manager when I didn't know some arcane and obsure sw app. > After 90 minutes of this,, I never heard from them again. Good. I > wouldn't want to work with such people anyway. > > The archness and smug attitude is way too prevalent among IT > professionals and that is one reason I said goodbye to all that. > > YMMV
Oooh! I can't resist telling my own personal horror story that relates to this
topic.
*YEARS* ago, I was in an interview given by some really junior birdman. I was
pleasant, communicative, cooperative, everything I was supposed to be. He
wanted to see if I knew how to program in C. (He didn't know me too well...) I
joked and said that he could ask me a C question if I could ask him one too.
Seriously, I was just playing, and I was playing in a truly sincere spirit of
showing how we were going to maximize our mutual communication experience.
He asked me some question to show how smart he was. No problem. Then I asked
him mine. Given that scrap below, what would the program print:
main ()
{
int i;
int *p;
i = 44;
p = &i;
i = i//*p;
printf("i = %d\n", i) /* What will this print? */
*p;
}
Of course, the answer is nothing. The joke was to see if he could spot the
comment that covered the printf.
After that, things got real sad real quick. In the words of Foghorn Leghorn,
what I was trying to say was, "It was a *joke* son! A *JOKE*!" He had no
ability to see what I was doing, and the end result was that he was terrified
that if they hired me, he'd get fired. Not how I wanted things to go, but the
lesson was there. When you've got more experience than the interviewer's
father, you *might* be better off sticking to topics he might have better
command over, like "How high did *you* get last night?"...
But... Back to ESR's betterquestions.
ESR is not intro material. I personally see it as an extremely well written
collaborative work, as is everything that esr does, that is intended for more
intermediate people. When someone asks a question wrong, it is *not* generally
productive to point the offender at that doc. Better to send him a link and
actually take a minute to point out one or two things in it of highest
relevance. And if you're on this list then you really should read it, if you
haven't already multiple times.
--
Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have .0.
happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ ..0
Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- 000
individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
steveo at syslang.net
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