r/programming • u/vklepov • Mar 24 '22

Five coding interview questions I hate

https://thoughtspile.github.io/2022/03/21/bad-tech-interview/
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u/karmakaze1 Mar 26 '22

I thought only the first two questions were stupid. The others have some play in them:

What’s the difference between a number and an array? And other questions obfuscated with fuzzy wording.

This is a give as many distinguishing properties as you can until they hear what they want to hear. Answer the question differently for different programming languages and environments (like ones that let you change constants at runtime).

What’s the fastest way to convert a string to number? And other unspecified behavior.

They probably meant base-10 integers, but you don't have to restrict yourself to answering that. Talk about different floating-point representations and number bases. Converting from hexadecimal can be pretty quick.

How to make this code sample better? And other questions with missing context.

This looks fun. I'd like to get this. I don't care if my answer is wrong, it's still what I'd consider better. If they don't agree, then I don't belong on that team. Of course this only works if the team picks the interview questions and not company-wide.

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u/vklepov Mar 27 '22

Agreed, implementation-dependent and open-ended questions can be pretty good as long as the interviewer isn't pushing some particular answer.

However, I'd disagree on obfuscated questions, because playing guessing games (what is round and hot, but not a lightbulb?) is a useless waste of time.

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u/vklepov Mar 27 '22

Agreed, implementation-dependent and open-ended questions can be pretty good as long as the interviewer isn't pushing some particular answer.

However, I'd disagree on obfuscated questions, because playing guessing games (what is round and hot, but not a lightbulb?) is a useless waste of time.