From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <57d65aed80cdcf38dc560e246717c97b@9netics.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] rc mystery
Date: Fri,  6 Aug 2004 11:21:20 -0700
From: Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com>
In-Reply-To: <20040807015643.373bb01f@garlic.apnic.net>
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>>What's deceitful about asking somebody what does printf("%c\n",0["unix"]);
>>print and why?  The "trick" is only a conversation piece.
>
> Conversation pieces are best left for the dinner table, where wit, and verbal
> fencing are appropriate. Personally, I find interviews a very degrading process
> from both sides of the bench.

Maybe that's why interviews are harder than need to be.  Perhaps you
view it as judging a person's life's accomplishment; I don't.  I have passed
up a number of candidates that I would have enjoyed having as friends.

> Its a very odd way to get one char out. You've made the compiler reduce a
> string literal down to one char, to stuff into a stack, only to throw away
> the rest of the string. I'm struggling to see why this is better than an
> embedded /* we need to emit 'u' at this point */ comment which is probably less
> work for the compiler, although I suppose it has to find the end of comment marker
> rather than walk the embedded string, find its first element, and literal it.
>
> Is it really efficient to array de-ref rather than embed the ASCII value directly?

The point is how arrays work in C (and C++). That's all.

>
> I'm not convinced we wouldn't do better with a lottery. I am not a
> psychologist and I cannot predict how people will respond to questions
> where the 'desired' answer is not clear. It only gets worse if English is
> not the first language. Maybe you don't hire non-nationals. Or do you 'test' them
> in their own language? (perhaps C is, in these cases, the best choice..)

As I pointed out before, the interview shouldn't be the judgement on a
person's life; just the relevance of their experience and aptitude to
the work at hand.  Communications skills and person's sense of
aesthetics are also big considerations.

(P.S. It has been my experience that candidates that had previously worked
at Apple, are more stylish than those that worked at M$; man or woman)