Re: On Interviewing and Interview Questions

My favorite interview question:

"You've got a file on machine A and want to get it to machine B. Give me ten ways to do it."

You'd be surprised at how many people stall out at 3 or 5. It gives you a nice feel for both how their mind works and what they've been exposed to.

("Pigeons", for instance, would pretty much get you the job on the spot.)

Comment on Re: On Interviewing and Interview Questions

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: On Interviewing and Interview Questions by Anonymous Monk on Aug 29, 2005 at 13:31 UTC
Pigeons are a lousy answer. It takes way too long to train them to memorize the file, and they usually make significant mistakes when asked to recite it back. :-) Seriously, you never said machine B was more than ten feet away, and if all it takes it ten transport mechanisms to count as ten distinct answers, then the question can be answered trivially. ("Send a floppy by car/bus/train/pigeon/horse/elephant/ etc") Here's my list: Retype it, using a hex editor if necessary. Put it on floppy/CD/zipdrive. Ethernet. Print the file, and scan it back using OCR. Use something like a uuencoding if necessary. Nullmodem cable across the serial/parallel port. Modem. Text to speech => tape recorder => voice recognition (like a modem, but more inefficient). Power down machine A, yank the hard drive with the file on it, re-install in drive B. Print bar codes & read back with a bar code reader. Hot-swap raid drives from A to B until the file is copied over. Keep replacing drives on A so that the system never goes down. How's that? Do I get the job? -- Ytrew	[reply]
Re^3: On Interviewing and Interview Questions by merzy (Scribe) on Sep 12, 2005 at 02:40 UTC
> How's that? Do I get the job? If I had a req, sure! :-) (The sad thing is that we've used 5 of those in our production environment.)	[reply]


Clear questions and runnable code get the best and fastest answer
	PerlMonks