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I'd just give them an answer that was in the same spirit as the one I give to the question: How long is a piece of string?
I would answer "One less than the number taken to fill it to overflowing".
The other answer is "twice as long as it is from the middle to one end".
Both of which are perfectly correct and absolutely precise. (even if arguably, useless answers)
Just as √2 is the correct answer for the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle with side-lengths of 1, the answer need not necessarily be expressed as a rational number. 
Smarty pants question would receive a smarty-pants answer. 
"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." - John Lennon
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Gary Wheeler wrote: If any interviewer were to ask me a question like that I would walk.
I interview people all of the time.
I ask questions like these at every interview.
The purpose is NOT EVER one true answer. It is about analyzing the person for their response.
Can they solve HUGE problems with lots of unknowns.
How do they approach it, how do they process it, and break it down.
Finally, how do they respond when they hear the problem.
There is no one right answer. In fact, I had a PhD once who belted out the approach to my top 3 questions. Completely nailing them. So I asked a question which is nearly impossible to know the answer to (what happens to a brownie, when pushed out a port of the space shuttle, into space. So that it is going from an atmosphere condition of inside the space shuttle, to outside into space. Describe everything you can think of. Does it explode, implode, etc.)
This is where it is interesting. He completely wigged out. He became physically agitated, he did not know the answer, and it really bothered him. But his response showed me that he may have some social issues. He is used to always being right, and is usually the smartest guy in the room.
The point is, that it was a fun game when he knew the answer, and it was stressful when he did not.
I want the guy who thinks it is a fun game when he does not know the answer, and plays with the question. Turns it around. Asks it differently. States a bunch of assumptions, and then starts developing insights as to what will/should happen and what to look for, what you could test.
I don't really want the answer. There is no ONE right answer. There is no ONE right approach.
There is simply the concept that MOST software is about building the unknown. And if you don't have the skills, to quickly start mapping that unknown to known, and what questions to ask, and to ENJOY the process. You are going to fail. Very rarely do my clients come to me and say "I need you to add 2 integers together and output the result". They ask for things like "We need to automate the filling in of these various forms with data from up to X different sources, and we need it to be correct. I have PEOPLE who do this today, but the computer would be so much faster." (Except that people can think, and programs have a tough time doing what people do). (BTW, in this case, we used 2 monitors and wrote a drag-n-drop interface that updated the other program. The problem was way too "humanistic". But a well-intentioned PhD could have spent years trying to write the system, which would have had to been reviewed by a human anyways).
BTW, if you have a better way to find people who are comfortable with complexity, and have the ability to express how they approach it, given problems that they have never heard of, and you know that your process works in general (nothing is perfect). I AM ALL EARS? (or eyes, since I will be reading it).
As hiring managers, we are trying to find skills. Not what people tell us, but what they truly have.
We need to know our confidence in those skill levels. And we cannot just trust what they tell us. Sometimes 10 years of C++ is really the same 1 year of C++ simply 10 years in row!
HTH
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So, you are sitting across the desk from a guy who is going to give you a six-figure salary, and just wants you to answer a dumb question about ping pong balls and aircraft. Are you really going to blow off the job because you find the question irritating? Have you ever done this in an interview, or is this just wind?
Many people assert that they would blow off an interview because they find a single question to be beneath them. I can't understand this attitude. Far better to answer the question, finish the interview, find out how good the offer is, and then blow off the job if the balance doesn't tip in your favor.
Do people really act this impulsively? Have you ever done it? Have you ever had a candidate do this to you when you were the interviewer?
'Cause I don't think the job market is that hot. But I'm willing to be educated.
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The fundamental question you must ask, either as an interviewer or an interviewee, is "are you a jerk?".
If I'm an interviewee, and they ask me how many paramecia would fill the secretary's bladder, I know they're a jerk. I don't intend to work for jerks.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Just ask how they go about solving problems (get them to give an example) and the big one: what do you do when you really get stuck and the internet isn't giving you any help?
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Post "SND CODZZZ URGNTZZZ" in QA, generally...
No, I agree. How you solve a problem is much, much more important than your ability to find Google, CP, SO, et al. Being able to debug code is important because the thought processes that you develop doing that improve your code generally (IMO, anyway).
It amazes me that everybody in QA has access to possibly the most wonderful debugging tool on the planet in the shape of Visual Studio - but most of 'em can't even use it to find out which value is null. 
Thirty years ago, I'd have killed for VS!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: the most wonderful debugging tool on the planet in the shape of Visual Studio
Windbg. That truly IS an amazing debug tool.
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Saw "Windbag". 
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That is its nick name.
You can kernel debug, and then, if you like, switch to a specific process, and debug that.
Its got the ability to break, look at stack variables, and if they are not of interest, do a go. Thus you can break when a particular file gets opened.
It is a very very powerful tool.
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I know the feeling regarding VS. We used to be penalised anytime we used a debugger process. There was a case where four of us were pouring through a COBOL printout trying to debug a failing program. No joy, so to the debugger...
The program took a branch we didn't expect. The cause was a missing full stop which was masked by a blemish on the printer paper where the full stop should have been.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Emilio Largo wrote: I think this is very important
Only person I have ever seen that actually seemed to hire above average people was an HR person. That person didn't ask technical questions.
I have seen many developers fumble around many variations of 'technical' questions often with no idea of what an answer actually proved. And that is the best result. Sometimes it can even lead to confrontation type challenges as to what the 'right' answer.
Myself they never provide any useful information and only serve to make the interviewee more uncomfortable than they already are.
Given that history I am more concerned with whether the person can communicate is some reasonable fashion. Most can.
Most can be average programmers as well. Not surprising given that despite claims over the years by company executives at many companies, the developers were, on average, average.
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While you're interviewing the candidate, have someone else go to the parking lot and randomly pull a spark plug wire from his car. When he/she leaves, time how long it takes the candidate to think of opening the hood. Bonus points for discovering the wire is missing in less than 30 minutes.
Will Rogers never met me.
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This is actually a great idea. 
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Dumb
====
Dumbwaiter there's a hair flying like Steve Nashville cats and chicks can get their kicks on Route 66 bottles of beer on the Wall Drugstore cowboys to Men at Workin' in a Coalmine eyes have seen the gloria vanderbiltmore the merry-go-round-the-clocktopushme-pullyou are the one in a million monkeychain gang of Four Horsemen of the Apocalipotherapy souped up Ford Mustang - the drink of Astronautical Bears, oh my, what a dumb
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Now where is that downvote button? 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Just heard this poem[^] by a mermaid in Pirates of the caribbean - On stranger tides. Not able to find the same one, but you may listen to it here[^] ... Same same, but not same. I wonder who wrote it.
My instincts say, never to go near a mermaid, ever. 
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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I don't know who wrote the poem, but the name, Jolly Sailor Bold, sounds like a great name for a new nautically-themed font!! Nothing clownish or cartoonish, but a serviceable document font with a nautical, perhaps "tall ships", flair.
Any of you fontographers up to the challange?? 
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now.
© 2009, Rex Hammock
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Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay,
Which today has a totally different meaning. 
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Exactly, for a moment I had the same thought. But then I thought poem was better than giving it a laugh out loud for this!
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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What with several months on a ship with no women on board, it probably means what it says!
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I think it's one of those songs that goes on anon anon anon anon!
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✈ █ █
3 letters characters
No clue - too easy!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
modified 11-Aug-15 7:36am.
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Nice try, but none of us are going to answer you know. You're stuck doing this till the end of time. 
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PooperPig - Coming Soon
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