python interview quuestions

[J Kenneth King]

James Mills <prologic at shortcircuit.net.au> writes:

> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 4:32 AM, Tim Chase <python.list at tim.thechases.com> wrote:
>>> I would like to aquint myself with Python Interview questions
>>
>> This came up a while ago:
>>
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/python-list@python.org/msg168961.html
>>
>> Most of that thread is still relevant (perhaps throw in some py3l questions
>> too)
>
> A common thing you can do in interviews is ask
> your interviewee to write (in Python) a solution
> to the "FizzBuzz" problem. Any good competent
> Python programmer should be able to do this
> in 5-10mins (5 if you're good).
>
> cheers
> james

Fizzbuzz is annoying in interviews. 

I've never worked at a job where I was under a timer while a group of
people sat across from me and scrutinized everything I was doing.

I don't see how it can honestly tell you anything useful about the
person you're interviewing either.  Do you really think that what you
assume about the interviewee based on characteristics you can infer from
their solution to be really, honestly true?  They might even completely
bomb the solution and still be a brilliant programmer, but you'll never
know that if you trust this simple "fizzbuzz" test.

I've been in those interviews on both sides of the table.  Neither side
was a good experience.

If a test is necessary, make it a take-home or demand source code if
they have it.  Read their code and judge for yourself the quality of
their work.

Any questions in an interview should be the usual "get to know you" type
stuff.  "What was the most difficult challenge you've faced on the job?
How did you respond?"  That sort of thing.