python interview quuestions

Roy Smith roy at panix.com
Tue Aug 10 20:08:14 EDT 2010


In article 
<507f1970-9c15-4200-a90b-6ebc018c074b at a4g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
 Peter <peter.milliken at gmail.com> wrote:

> Agreed. Although anything that involves "take home" or reading of
> "their" code runs the risk of the candidate presenting somebody else's
> work...

I expect a candidate to emphasize their positive qualities, perhaps even 
exaggerate a little.  The point of a technical interview is to assess 
just how much of each :-)  What I do NOT expect is outright 
prevarication.  I go into the interview with the assumption that the 
candidate is, if nothing else, honest.

In any case, if the candidate were to submit somebody else's work, it 
would come out pretty quickly as we discussed their code.  I suppose one 
question I might ask would be, "Can you explain why, when I copy-paste 
one of your comments into a google search box, your entire program 
appears?"

> I usually just tried to get a feel for their stated experience and ask
> some questions just to make sure they weren't presenting somebodies
> else's (fictitious even!) resume.

Amazingly enough, that does happen.  I once got two resumes in the same 
pile which were word-for-word identical, except for the name on the top.  
I've been around the block a few times, but I was still shocked.  I'm 
not sure what was more shocking; that people could be that dishonest, or 
that they could be so clumsy and stupid about it.



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