Shannon Graham

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since Mar 11, 2013
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Recent posts by Shannon Graham

Henry Wong wrote:

What do you think? Should the questions be generic? Or should they be more focused on what the candidate is likely to need for the role?

Henry



As long as it's actually possible for a recruit to know what you consider essential for the job, and therefore, what the questions will be about.

Garbage collection, for instance. I assume you're talking about the sort used in Java, which is a wonderful feature that C lacks. If your ad says "Programmer with 5 years of experience in Java wanted for a position that will revolutionize memory handling in OOP environments", does that tell them that they should brush up on garbage collection? Is it going to say specifically, on your company website, "we are THE masters of garbage collection?"

I bet it doesn't. I bet it says something more like, "we provide high powered memory management and process efficiency applications to supercharge your business." Which, of course, does not tell the candidate to brush up on garbage collection. The only way they'll know is probably if they happen to be lucky enough to chat with one of your other employees and it comes up in conversation.

Unless I'm wrong, of course.

tl;dr, yes, I do think that questions should be focused on the company's domain. But then again, programming is programming and most competent people should be able to learn what they need pretty quickly, even if they don't have it memorized on interview day.
11 years ago

Jeff Verdegan wrote:

Shannon Graham wrote:I guess the question is really meant to see a programmers approach. So it's a silly question



That certainly doesn't follow. Questions designed to see how a candidate approaches a problem can be very useful.

I don't think this one is particularly good, but then, I didn't post it, just commented on it after somebody else did.



I don't think there's any reason it can't be both silly and useful.
11 years ago
I guess the question is really meant to see a programmers approach. So it's a silly question - I'd make the interviewer draw on paper the triangle he was describing, saying "I just want to make sure we're both talking about the same kind of triangle", then point out how difficult it would be to make it exactly equilateral. Then I'd offer a couple of compromises.

11 years ago
Err...



Ought to print out:



I mean, you would have to measure line height and other foolish crap to make it exactly equilateral, I guess, but why would you say it's impossible?

11 years ago
Are you talking about git or subversion source control? Cause if you are, the answer is:
If you have an exception, don't commit the code. End of story. Don't make other people deal with your mistakes, fix them before you push the code.
11 years ago
Also, apologies for being the grammar nazi, but I hope you make sure to use perfect grammar and punctuation in the work you want to submit, or you will not get good results. Have someone proofread it for you. I recognize that a lot of people in this forum, probably including you, don't speak English as your first language. But if you want to be published in English then you do have to use it correctly. Publishers will not make exceptions for you.
11 years ago
change your method to this:

11 years ago
Super dope. How old are the kids?
11 years ago

Rachelle Dygowski wrote:I got it. Needed to put it in my string and that worked. I put the restrictions in the string and that's were it read it in and compared it to the tester input. I always get excited when I get it to work. Thanks for the help. Just making me look at it another way helped.



Rachelle, have you ever tried using test cases? This is the sort of code that would really benefit from a test. For instance, a test for your code would look like this:



You can see how it checks to make sure all your functions work as you expect them to.

Assuming you're using eclipse, you can run that as a JUnit test, and you'll get a nice green bar if all the tests pass, and a red one if they fail. That'll tell you exactly where the code is going wrong.
11 years ago

Yahya Elyasse wrote:

Martin Vajsar wrote:

Yahya Elyasse wrote:ok what was the sarcasm about?


The answer, of course, is forty-two.

(Unless I'm seriously mistaken, Ulf is referring to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which elaborates extensively on the usefulness of towels in more or less any situation. And on the importance of the number 42.)


thanks i didn't knew about this famous 42 magical number untill you have pointed it. i have read a book about the mysterious Constants of the universe. but i never heard before about the mysterious 42 number.



You could read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which is an excellent book. But you're also safe assuming that every time someone on the internet mentions towels or the number 42, says "thanks for all the fish" or "don't panic", or something really obscure that somehow makes sense if you read it in a British accent, they're talking about that book.
11 years ago
Hmm, evaluating the tools themselves isn't always the best way of doing it. There might be a framework that does exactly what you need, elegantly, but if the community sucks, you don't know anyone else who uses it, and no one's ever heard of it, then it won't do you much good. When I just need to get stuff done, I stick with technology and languages that I already know, or that a friend recommends because they know it.

Save the crazy new stuff for weekend projects, right?

As for timers, I have no idea. Did you end up finding something that worked?
11 years ago
Quite helpful, thank you sir!
11 years ago

Bear Bibeault wrote:We have a Mac forum. We have an Android forum. And we have an IDEs forum.

Answer your question?



For my next question, where can I get 13 macaws, a purple beret, and a box of Pear's soap?

...It's for an application.
11 years ago
I'm new here. I do Android development on a Mac, and most of my life is spent fighting with eclipse. Do you folks welcome my type around here?
11 years ago