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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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Broken Perl Quiz 14 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • The questions are not all entirely asinine, although the "correct" answers indicate some confusion on the part of the testers. More horrible, though, is that flash intro...
    --
    rjbs
  • $p = [ { a => 1, b => 2, c => 3 }, “ant”, “bat”, “cat” ];
    Which of the following expression gives the value cat ?
    $p[3]
    $p->{c}
    $p->[4]
    $p->{bat}

    $p->[3] would be correct, and

    %x = qw(C Ritchie Perl wall C++ Stroustrup); print @x{C, C++}

    Error : should use % instead of @ in print function
    Displays Stroustrup
    Displays Ritchie
    Displays Ritchie Stroustrup

    This doesn't compile, but of course, they didn't use " in a bunc

    • $p = [ { a => 1, b => 2, c => 3 }, “ant”, “bat”, “cat” ];
      Which of the following expression gives the value cat ?
      $p[3]
      $p->{c}
      $p->[4]
      $p->{bat}

      $p->[3] would be correct, and

      I think you're forgetting about pseudo-hashes (but, of course, everyone should be forgetting about pseudo-hashes!)

      %x = qw(C Ritchie Perl wall C++ Stroustrup); print @x{C, C++}

      Error : should use % instead of @ in print function
      Displa

      • I think you're forgetting about pseudo-hashes (but, of course, everyone should be forgetting about pseudo-hashes!) Ah, never bothered to actually learn about pseudo-hashes. Mark one up for laziness!
    • Maybe hiring someone to maintain some nasty code is exactly what they're going after. Of course, that doesn't jive with their claim of looking for the best Perl hackers. And why on earth would anyone put up a test like this claiming to be looking for the best-of-the-best? I know a few places I could go where I couldn't throw a rock without hitting one. And that Flash intro was just horrid. It must have been written by the winner of their test to find the world's best Flash composer.
      --
      The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once.
      • Maybe hiring someone to maintain some nasty code is exactly what they're going after.
        I don't think so. I've been in touch with them, and even corrected 10 of their questions with various levels of LART application. They fully believed (a) their questions were satisfactory, albeit hard and (b) they weren't trying to trick anyone with impossible questions.

        I presume they've updated the quiz by now, but I haven't had time to go back to check.

        --
        • Randal L. Schwartz
        • Stonehenge
  • The quiz is dumb. Most of them can be answered with perl -e. The broken questions:

    1) None of the above. The answer is "\n", unless strict is on.

    6) None of the above. The answer is $p->[3] or $$p[3].

    11) Both b and c are right answers

    14) None of the above. The answer is "\n" because "perl\n" is not equal to "perl"

    15) Syntax error: Can't modify constant item in postincrement (++) at -e line 1, near "C++"
  • The chosen ones can expect:
    • An offer letter from the worldwide leader in marketing automation technologies
    • A surprising (make that stunning) pay packet, benefits and possible stock options
    • A superlative work environment
    Translation:
    • An offer letter from the worldwide leader in spamming
    • make millions selling our list of email addresses
    • while working in your spare time from home

    The quiz sucks because the author sucks because only somo

  • I wonder if they got permission from O'Reilly to use the camel (the bouncing camel on the "Perl Trivia" tab).
  • Hah, got a mail from them now - because of my "excellent performance in the quiz", they want to offer me a "Hot Perl Job in Bangalore". Of course this offer was sent with 11 visible adresses in the To-field.

    It's an interesting way to hire people, but maybe saying upfront that the job's in India would be smart ;-)

    Email in full:

    Dear Friend,

    Thank you for taking on the Perplexer at www.hiddenPerl.com. We would like to congratulate you on your excellent performance in the quiz.

    hiddenPerl is an att

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