On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 12:33 +1300, German Geek wrote:
> EXIST?  Yeah I certainly have seen it before in the result of a mysqldump,
> but from the top of my head, I probably wouldn't have known in exactly what
> context it is used. I've used MySQL for 5 years now and i think if you ask
> such a question, you don't know what you should be asking because the
> context of EXIST is hardly ever needed, and if, if you know where to look
> for it, that's more important than being able to reproduce it in from the
> top of your head. It's like asking: "Do you know the syntax for ..." where
> ... is a rarely used function in PHP or any other language. It's like
> requiring your employees to know every function of a language...
> 
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 4:03 AM, tedd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > Hi gang:
> >
> > I just interviewed for a job teaching at the local college (imagine me
> > taking minds of mush and molding them to the world according to tedd --
> > frightening huh?)
> >
> > In any event, the interviewer asked me how long I've been using MySQL and I
> > replied several years. After which she asked a single question, which was
> > "What does EXIST mean?"
> >
> > Now without running to the manuals, please be honest and tell me how many
> > of you know off the top of your head what EXIST means? I would be curious to
> > know.
> >
> > I answered the question correctly, (I'm one of those weird types who read
> > manuals for fun) but I have never used EXIST in a query. Have any of you?
> >
> > And while we're on the subject of MySQL -- while we all know how to write
> > it, how do you say it?
> >
> > I've read that the common way is to say "My Squell", or something like
> > that. But I always sounded out each letter, such as "My S-Q-L". The
> > interviewer pronounced it the same as I, but I have heard others say it
> > differently.
> >
> > What say you?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > tedd
> >
> > --
> > -------
> > http://sperling.com  http://ancientstones.com  http://earthstones.com
> >
> > --
> > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
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> >
Better questions really ought to be along the lines of "how would you
tackle this problem?" and then accept a variety of answers back, or some
debugging on erroneous code. Unfortunately, these tests all too often
feature questions on those obscure functions that are rarely used.


Ash
www.ashleysheridan.co.uk


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