The Most Challenging Interview Question
in [JavaScript]
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From: Richard Cornford on 7 May 2010 07:07 On May 7, 11:45 am, Ry Nohryb wrote: > On May 7, 10:17 am, David Mark wrote: >> Ry Nohryb wrote: >>> On May 7, 9:27 am, Garrett Smith wrote: <snip> >>>> What is your most challenging interview question? > >>>> Mine: >>>> "What do you think of jQuery?" > >>> A: It's a library that attempts to provide a better browser API. > >> Attempted and failed (miserably). Have you looked at their API? >> It's not just the innards that stink with that thing, the crust >> is garbage too. Or was that supposed to be a disingenuous answer? > > It's the truth, and a very diplomatic way of putting it, imo. It is a question that is going to need a very diplomatic answer in that context. I would probably go for something along the lines of; it is pretty much what you would expect given the relative understanding of javascript and browser scripting experience of its designer(s). That is fully open to interpretation (including a positive interpretation), but if pursued invites the justification that would prevent the answer sounding bigoted. Richard.
From: Dmitry A. Soshnikov on 7 May 2010 08:27 On May 7, 3:07 pm, Richard Cornford <Rich...(a)litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote: > On May 7, 11:45 am, Ry Nohryb wrote: > > > > > On May 7, 10:17 am, David Mark wrote: > >> Ry Nohryb wrote: > >>> On May 7, 9:27 am, Garrett Smith wrote: > <snip> > >>>> What is your most challenging interview question? > > >>>> Mine: > >>>> "What do you think of jQuery?" > > >>> A: It's a library that attempts to provide a better browser API. > > >> Attempted and failed (miserably). Have you looked at their API? > >> It's not just the innards that stink with that thing, the crust > >> is garbage too. Or was that supposed to be a disingenuous answer? > > > It's the truth, and a very diplomatic way of putting it, imo. > > It is a question that is going to need a very diplomatic answer in > that context. I would probably go for something along the lines of; > it is pretty much what you would expect given the relative > understanding of javascript and browser scripting experience of its > designer(s). That is fully open to interpretation (including a > positive interpretation), but if pursued invites the justification > that would prevent the answer sounding bigoted. > Is this thread the discussion of jQuery library or I missed something? Or is it about "The Most Challenging Interview Question"? (just want to warn irrelevant discussion on 10 pages in the 100-th time repeating all the same about jQuery). If you going to make interview and test the candidates for work, you should do this depending on your current project(s) (if the project is big and isn't being changed in a time -- year or two). Of course there is a sense to test the basic (but deep) knowledge of the technology as well. Don't forget that questions are depended on the type of the position. If this is position of some theoretical analytic than of course there is a sense to ask some deep theoretical question. If the position is mostly practical and you still want to test some more-less deep knowledge, then can be questions related on features of the technology. The simplest but allowing to test whether the candidate understands what he's taking about e.g. "What does result alert(this)?" without mentioning the context of the question -- let the candidate will explain all this himself. Or, more practical: "Let there is an array. How to remove all elements with value 3 from it?" this question allows to check whether the candidate knows that "length" is being modified every time when he will be splicing/ deleting items, and therefore direct for-loop isn't fit. I can propose a very deep theoretical question which will fail the candidate -- but what the sense if we need a good practical programmer? So, all this depends. Of course, question on philosophy (such as yours -- about jQuery) can be also. Dmitry.
From: "Michael Haufe ("TNO")" on 7 May 2010 08:54 On May 7, 2:27 am, Garrett Smith <dhtmlkitc...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Everybody, > > What is your most challenging interview question? Q: How would you implement a constructor that inherits a method from it's prototype that has access to it's instance private variables? In other words if I had: function Foo(a){ ... var _foo = a ... } how would you use prototypical inheritance so that the following is possible: var obj1 = new Foo("one"), obj2 = new Foo("two"); obj1.thing() //"one" obj2.thing() //"two"
From: "Michael Haufe ("TNO")" on 7 May 2010 08:57 On May 7, 7:54 am, "Michael Haufe (\"TNO\")" <t...(a)thenewobjective.com> wrote: > On May 7, 2:27 am, Garrett Smith <dhtmlkitc...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi Everybody, > > > What is your most challenging interview question? > > Q: How would you implement a constructor that inherits a method from > it's prototype that has access to it's instance private variables? In > other words if I had: > > function Foo(a){ > ... > var _foo = a > ... > > } > > how would you use prototypical inheritance so that the following is > possible: > > var obj1 = new Foo("one"), > obj2 = new Foo("two"); > > obj1.thing() //"one" > obj2.thing() //"two" An addendum for those playing at home and want to try: the "thing()" method should be declared only once.
From: Richard Cornford on 7 May 2010 09:30
On May 7, 1:27 pm, Dmitry A. Soshnikov wrote: > On May 7, 3:07 pm, Richard Cornford wrote: >> On May 7, 11:45 am, Ry Nohryb wrote: >>> On May 7, 10:17 am, David Mark wrote: >>>> Ry Nohryb wrote: >>>>> On May 7, 9:27 am, Garrett Smith wrote: >><snip> >>>>>> What is your most challenging interview question? > >>>>>> Mine: >>>>>> "What do you think of jQuery?" > >>>>> A: It's a library that attempts to provide a better browser API. > >>>> Attempted and failed (miserably). Have you looked at their API? >>>> It's not just the innards that stink with that thing, the crust >>>> is garbage too. Or was that supposed to be a disingenuous >>>> answer? > >>> It's the truth, and a very diplomatic way of putting it, imo. > >> It is a question that is going to need a very diplomatic answer >> in that context. I would probably go for something along the >> lines of; it is pretty much what you would expect given the >> relative understanding of javascript and browser scripting >> experience of its designer(s). That is fully open to >> interpretation (including a positive interpretation), but if >> pursued invites the justification that would prevent the >> answer sounding bigoted. > > Is this thread the discussion of jQuery library or I missed > something? It isn't a discussion of JQuery, though that may happen. In principle the question would be just unpleasant if its subject were Prototype.js, Dojo, ExtJS, etc, etc. > Or is it about "The Most Challenging Interview Question"? That is the subject, but it is not entirely clear whether the intention is the discussion of the most challenging question that one may ask a potential employee/colleague while interviewing them, or the question one may find most challenging when being interviewed. My initial interpretation favoured the latter, but closer inspection suggests that the subject may be more ambiguous than I had first assumed. > (just want to warn irrelevant discussion on 10 pages in the > 100-th time repeating all the same about jQuery). > > If you going to make interview and test the candidates for work, > you should do this depending on your current project(s) (if the > project is big and isn't being changed in a time -- year or two). So you are interpreting this as the most challenging question to ask a potential employee/colleague while interviewing them. > Of course there is a sense to test the basic (but deep) knowledge > of the technology as well. It is unrealistic to expect deep technical knowledge from most candidates for javascript related web development jobs. When I was interviewed by my current employers the job I applied for was advertised as requiring a "javascript expert" (realistically, as that is exactly what was needed), and I was given a 'technical test' that was so rudimentary (cantered around really basic cross-browser DOM interaction questions) that I thought that anyone who did not get 100% on that test had no business applying for a javascript/browser scripting job in the first place, let alone presenting themselves as a "javascript expert". It turned out that one of the (main) reasons that I was offered the job was that I was the only candidate interviewed who had achieved better than 50% on that, so called, technical test (where the contrast between those scores and my 100% suggested that finding more candidates to interview would not be a worthwhile exercise). That is; the vast majority of people applying for jobs starting "javascript expert" as a requirement are not even capable of getting the basics right. I wonder how this comes about. Is it really widespread misperception of their own abilities on the parts of the applicants; an unfounded overconfidence? Or could it be a general attitude of 'trying it on', and these individuals do appreciate that they don't really qualify but are willing to try to bluff their way through the interview. Then it could be that this is a manifestation of a general contempt for the employers; that when they say "javascript expert" they don't really know what they need but had to write something. > Don't forget that questions are depended on the type of the > position. If this is position of some theoretical analytic > than of course there is a sense to ask some deep theoretical > question. If the position is mostly practical and you still > want to test some more-less deep knowledge, then can be > questions related on features of the technology. Given what I wrote above, while gauging the range of technical understanding possessed by a candidate for this second class of job will be useful, I think it would also be valuable to attempt to find out how they react to being presented with boundaries of their knowledge. Will they recognise their mistakes when shown, will they attempt to bluff, are they interested in the 'correct' answer; in learning from it. That is, is this an individual who can/will use the "mostly practical" position to learn enough to move towards the "theoretical analytic" position? > The simplest but allowing to test whether the candidate > understands what he's taking about e.g. > > "What does result alert(this)?" > > without mentioning the context of the question -- let the > candidate will explain all this himself. > > Or, more practical: > > "Let there is an array. How to remove all elements with > value 3 from it?" > > this question allows to check whether the candidate knows > that "length" is being modified every time when he will be > splicing/deleting items, and therefore direct for-loop > isn't fit. I assume that "direct for-loop" means an incrementing index, as a for loop with a decrementing index doesn't see the issue. > I can propose a very deep theoretical question which will fail the > candidate -- but what the sense if we need a good practical > programmer? To find out how the candidate responds to having limitations in their knowledge exposed. > So, all this depends. > > Of course, question on philosophy (such as yours -- about > jQuery) can be also. The question wasn't mine, rather I proposed one possible approach to (not) answering it. Richard. |