From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: krewat@kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat) Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2017 19:15:12 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] pre-more pager? In-Reply-To: References: <9dc0fdd2-d4d4-8375-2117-a744e1b8f88a@kilonet.net> <54e07b8e-15ee-5786-bda0-533003aab69a@kilonet.net> <902164cd-9c7c-9ce9-d66c-d6321608f526@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 11/9/2017 3:53 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > If you're interviewing a new hire, see how long it takes 'em to work > out what this does: > >     :; /dev/tty sed 1q ;: echo "Hello, world" > For me, there are other criteria for hiring than telling me what some obscure string of stuff will do. It's more important that they can take the above or something similar and shorten/simplify it to: head -1 /etc/motd or sed 1q < /etc/motd Because I just ran the above on a few different platforms, and they all just give the first line of /etc/motd, which I expected. I might be missing something :P - but having them solve a problem the shortest way possible is more in my interests. art k. PS: I've been in interviews where I was given something like that. A notable one was NYNEX Science and Technology. One of the sysadmins interviewing me asked about some obscure command or maybe an option, in SunOS. My answer was "well, I don't remember that, having already worked with SunOS for a few years, but see that row of manuals behind you? I bet I can find it in there quick enough". I did, within a minute or two. I got the consulting gig. -- Again, no disrespect intended.