I did write up a pretty succinct description of the algorithim required for the test -- so it was really an assignment to implement a given algorithim in C. This was clearly not a real-world situation (that is, I didn't engage the applicant in a discussion of sorting algorithims), but then few tests are.

To relate it a little more closely to the work I was doing at the time -- imagine if a legacy system requires that you do A, B, C, D then E, but the programmer you assign to do that task ignores that information and spends a week coming up with a much better solution that does B, E, D, C then A. It's coded beautifully, it's lightning fast .. but it's wrong because it's not what you asked for. What then?

Finally, I am flexible. I remember one situation where I went to my best programmer to plan an approach to a particular problem -- I had one idea, and he had another idea. The result? Aha! A melding of the two ideas which was miles better than either of the original ideas. We were both happy with the decision, and the company got a great solution.

--t. alex

"Excellent. Release the hounds." -- Monty Burns.