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GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
harold aptroot2-Feb-12 9:42
harold aptroot2-Feb-12 9:42 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer012-Feb-12 9:50
SledgeHammer012-Feb-12 9:50 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
harold aptroot2-Feb-12 9:55
harold aptroot2-Feb-12 9:55 
AnswerRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
PIEBALDconsult2-Feb-12 15:29
mvePIEBALDconsult2-Feb-12 15:29 
AnswerRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
V.2-Feb-12 21:54
professionalV.2-Feb-12 21:54 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 3:57
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 3:57 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
PIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 4:16
mvePIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 4:16 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:12
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:12 
Oh my lord... D'Oh! | :doh: .

Ok, fine... let me rephrase the question since people don't seem to understand what "hypothetical" and "think outside the box" mean Big Grin | :-D .

Almost the same exact problem, but completely rephrased. Instead of 0 - 9 & A - Z as your alphabet, you now only need to deal with A - Z. Instead of "words" fixed at 6 characters, you can now have "words" of any length. Given an input, I need you to find out if that "word" is "taken". Oh yeah, and this is for a mobile device where you have limited resources, so the customer will get mad if he is only able to install our application and no other because it fills up his mobile device.

Sounds almost like a spell check / dictionary type problem, no? Smile | :) . Kind of like the original problem if you were able to "think outside the box" Smile | :) .

Would you store a complete list of English words in a database to do a spell check? Heck No. That would be a horrible solution and a complete waste of space.

But you say "thats a completely different problem!!!! you bastard!!!"... not really... imagine if instead of spell checking english words, you "spell checked" the license plates Smile | :) .

Now obviously, when applied to the license plate problem, there are other issues, like the "spell check" solution AND/OR a database solution would be a horrible idea if you had a lot of items. Clearly for that problem, the packed bit array is the most scalable, compact & fastest runtime. Ok, but do mobile devices have 9GB of resources available? Probably not.

Anyways, it wasn't a real world design issue, it was a problem solving exercise Smile | :) .

But clearly, the license plate issue is pretty similar to a spell check problem.
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BobJanova3-Feb-12 5:31
BobJanova3-Feb-12 5:31 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:45
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:45 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BobJanova3-Feb-12 6:09
BobJanova3-Feb-12 6:09 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
PIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 12:52
mvePIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 12:52 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 13:22
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 13:22 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
PIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 4:18
mvePIEBALDconsult3-Feb-12 4:18 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:14
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:14 
AnswerRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BobJanova3-Feb-12 4:42
BobJanova3-Feb-12 4:42 
AnswerRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BillWoodruff3-Feb-12 4:47
professionalBillWoodruff3-Feb-12 4:47 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:19
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 5:19 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BillWoodruff3-Feb-12 5:59
professionalBillWoodruff3-Feb-12 5:59 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 7:06
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 7:06 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BillWoodruff3-Feb-12 7:36
professionalBillWoodruff3-Feb-12 7:36 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 8:19
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 8:19 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
BillWoodruff3-Feb-12 13:33
professionalBillWoodruff3-Feb-12 13:33 
GeneralRe: How would you store this data (interview question) Pin
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 13:53
SledgeHammer013-Feb-12 13:53 
Questionevents Pin
michaelgr12-Feb-12 8:08
michaelgr12-Feb-12 8:08 

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