Programming Interviews

From time to time, I am often tasked to interview some candidates for a software development position.  I usually focus on assessing C/C++ skills of the candidates.  To be honest, so far, I’m still struggling to find a good way to efficiently conduct the interview sessions to better probe the level of competency of the candidates.

That is why I’m so glad to see this article from Joel Spolsky.  It’s a must read for interviewers like me, especially for programming related positions.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from the article which I truly like:

A lot of programmers that you might interview these days are apt to consider recursion, pointers, and even data structures to be a silly implementation detail which has been abstracted away by today’s many happy programming languages. “When was the last time you had to write a sorting algorithm?” they snicker.

Still, I don’t really care. I want my ER doctor to understand anatomy, even if all she has to do is put the computerized defibrillator nodes on my chest and push the big red button, and I want programmers to know programming down to the CPU level, even if Ruby on Rails does read your mind and build a complete Web 2.0 social collaborative networking site for you with three clicks of the mouse.

Happy interviewing!

24 Season 7 – Episode 12 (8:00 pm – 9:00 pm)

Bill Buchanan will be sorely missed!!!  This episode marks Bill’s final appearance as he sacrificed himself to save President Taylor and the rest of hostages from General Juma’s invasion.  Unlike Tony Almeida, there seems to be no chance of a comeback as Bill was given a silent clock at 8:11pm.

Aside from above tragedy, Episode 12 is pretty fast-paced and the season is still going strong.  Granted, there’s been quite some unreasonable scripts, but it is still a very interesting show to watch.  There’s not a lot of tragedy like atomic bomb or anything like that, but so far, this season provides a steady stream of actions and twists.

Agent Walker slowly but surely becomes the female version of Jack Bauer, which is a good thing, I guess.  Jon Voight’s character is also very interesting as a villain.  I still don’t know his character’s name thus far.

Both Eunike and I don’t like Olivia’s character.  This girl spells trouble and doesn’t seem to know how to respond to a good intention.  I’m being mean here, but I really wouldn’t mind if General Juma terminate her while she was held hostage.  She literally accepted a job offer by accusing the guy who offered her the job as a failure and pretty much promised to bring him down.  Only a selfish, over-confident person would do such a thing, regardless of how good his/her deep down intentions are.

Anyway, enough ramblings for today, … can’t wait til next week’s episode.

To blog or not to blog

For some weird reason, today, I have this urge to start blogging again after a few years of being silent.  I’m not sure why.  It’s probably because I’m excited about the early Daylight Saving Time period (I have to admit, I was so happy to get out of work while the sun’s still up).  Or probably, today is Monday and I can’t wait til the next episode of 24.  Or probably because I’m still stoked that I won a huge bowling pin from a bowling event last week at UC Davis with Eunike’s colleagues.

I guess it’s just that there’s so much to be thankful for. It’s been a depressing time for a lot of people, but God has always been so good to me with His blessings.

I’ll try to keep this up … but now, it’s time for 24.