Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths
To   : comp.programming,comp.software-eng
From : Richard Heathfield
Date : Wed Aug 17 2005 01:55 am

Chris Sonnack wrote:

> It's a little bit like asking a supposed C programmer about this:
> 
> char*  strconcat(char* s1, char* s2)

This appears to be an attempt to build a new string by concatenating two old 
ones. It has some problems.


>     {
>         char  buf[256];
> 
>         strcpy(buf, s1);
>         strcat(buf, s2);
> 
>         return buf;
>     }
 
Firstly, the name is wrong. (Why?)
Secondly, some qualifiers are missing from the input parameters. (Which?)
Thirdly, there's a scope problem. (What?)
Fourthly, there's a robustness problem, which occurs twice. (What?)
Fifthly, there's an efficiency problem. (Which stdio.h routine is an 
appropriate fix?)

I would almost certainly have other things to say, depending on the 
interviewer's answers to the above questions. Never forget that an 
interview is a two-way process! :-)

> If they don't have *something* meaningful to say immediately, they
> probably aren't the sort of C programmer we'd want.  :-|
 
And if the interviewer doesn't have some handy answers to /my/ questions, 
they probably aren't the sort of client I'd want.

At interviews, whenever I remember (which isn't always) I try to ask the 
techie member of the interview team a simple question about the technology 
about which he is interviewing me. For example, for a C interview, "what 
type of value does main return?" If the techie gets it wrong, that's a good 
sign that I probably want to be elsewhere.
 

-- 
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
mail: rjh at above domain

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