python interview quuestions
in [Python]
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From: Peter on 10 Aug 2010 18:51 Agreed. Although anything that involves "take home" or reading of "their" code runs the risk of the candidate presenting somebody else's work... It was never a good experience being responsible for the hiring of somebody based on how well they sell themselves in an interview - some people are hopeless "sales people" and yet could be fantastic programmers! I mean lets face it, if you were good at selling would you still be a programmer? :-) I know who makes the most money! Of course there is the question of job satisfaction... 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. You generally make the best decision based on a number of factors about each candidate and depend on the 3 or 6 month "trial" period to weed out any bad mistakes you may have made during selection! I remember one team I managed had an individual from overseas (I won't mention the country or anything) - and therefore background checks by HR were not really possible. The person made so many fundamental mistakes that I went to the project manager and asked to see the resume - there was no way in this world that they had ever done even 1/100th of what their resume stated! :-) Obviously the interviewers for that person where completely conned and missed the (what should have been) obvious signs that the resume and candidate did not match. This was one of the many reasons why I decided on a career change and went back to being a dumb and happy programmer! That was 14 years ago now and I haven't regretted the decision one single day of that time :-) Peter On Aug 11, 6:44 am, J Kenneth King <ja...(a)agentultra.com> wrote: > James Mills <prolo...(a)shortcircuit.net.au> writes: > > On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 4:32 AM, Tim Chase <python.l...(a)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-l...(a)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.
From: Roy Smith on 10 Aug 2010 20:08 In article <507f1970-9c15-4200-a90b-6ebc018c074b(a)a4g2000prm.googlegroups.com>, Peter <peter.milliken(a)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.
From: Rolando Espinoza La Fuente on 10 Aug 2010 22:27 On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:31 PM, Tim Chase <python.list(a)tim.thechases.com> wrote: [...] >> More over, it can be done in just a single line of Python. >> >> 7 if you're not very familiar with Python. > > While it *can* be done in one line, I'm not sure it's the most legible > solution. Â Though I must say I like this one-line python version: > > for i in range(1, 101): print ((i%3==0 and 'fizz' or '') + (i%5==0 and > 'buzz' or '')) or i > > (adjust "3" and "5" for your local flavor of fizzbuzz) > > I'm not sure I'd hire a candidate that proposed this as a solution in > earnest, but I'd have fun chatting with them :) I didn't believe it could take more than 5 minutes, but this took me ~10 minutes, though I'm familiar with python and I did the FizzBuzz one-liners before: http://gist.github.com/518370 Well.. I tried to use generators to make it "cool" but changed it for a test-friendly approach. I'll find hard to remember the one-liners in an interview and get it right. Rolando Espinoza La fuente www.insophia.com
From: Terry Reedy on 11 Aug 2010 02:24 On 8/10/2010 8:08 PM, Roy Smith wrote: > 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?" Mostly likely because I wrote the original... would be my answer. -- Terry Jan Reedy
From: Tim Chase on 11 Aug 2010 06:50
On 08/11/10 01:24, Terry Reedy wrote: > On 8/10/2010 8:08 PM, Roy Smith wrote: >> 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?" > > Mostly likely because I wrote the original... > > would be my answer. Unfortunately there are candidates who would give your answer but then have trouble with "Then why are the Last-Modified HTTP headers showing a date several months before our interview?" It's as bad as the phone-interviews I've done where in the background I can hear the person on the other end typing my questions into a search box and reading off answers. On the bright side, those are short interviews... ;-) -tkc |