Subj : Re: Reverse words in a string (Another Interview question) To : comp.programming From : Simo Melenius Date : Fri Sep 30 2005 09:43 am gds@best.cut.here.com writes: > At 29 Sep 2005 16:53:23 -0700, "Jaspreet" > wrote: > I once had an interview where I gave the correct answer, but the > interviewer insisted that I was not correct. In a neutral tone of > voice, I replied that I was correct. Apparently, this scenario comes > up in interviews at times, at least according to Joel on Software > (www.joelonsoftware.com). > > From a productivity standpoint, I wonder if it makes sense to use this > type of criterion to identify the best candidates. A smart interviewer would want you to elaborate on different solutions, their pros and cons and speculate how they vary between situations. All of it, you know, depends. You can't give right or wrong answers to anything but case of which more details on involved constraints are known. This sort of evaluation can reveal a lot more of your thinking and experience, works even if you didn't figure out even the technically correct answer to the day's tricky question in the first place. Conversely, a different kind of an interviewer will check a box in his papers, or leave it unchecked, depending on whether you hit the answer the company was expecting. This reduces the interview analogous to a buzzword bingo game, and I wouldn't lose my good night's sleep over one. You can then make guesses of whether the interviewing method belongs to a company whose goal is to try to pick the gems, or to one that tries to only filter out the worst. :-o br, S -- firstname.lastname@iki.fi -- Today is the car of the cdr of your life. .