use Perl

• Questions (Score:3, Interesting)

  by petdance (2468)

  For the last two hires I had, I threw together a few questions about Perl to smoke out anyone who obviously had never done anything with the language.

  What are the differences between C<our>, C<my> and C<local>?
  
  What is C<$!>?
  
  What is C<$_>?
  
  What is C<$&>?
  
  What is C<$1>?
  
  How do you delete a file?
  
  What does C<TMTOWTDI> mean?
  
  How do you implement a list of hashes?

  I figure that someone who's been using Perl for a while will know all these. I don't like memo

  --
  

  --
  xoa
  • Re:Questions (Score:2)

    by ajt (2546) on 2003.03.03 11:28 (#17667) Homepage Journal

    Once upon a time I went for interview with amazon.co.uk. Overall I'd have to say I didn't like the location or the atmosphere, and I was glad I didn't get the job, however the random test at the interview was actually quite good.

    Without any warning the sat me down with a glass of water, a pencil and a sheet of awful HTML and asked me to fix it. At once I said it was not possible without knowing the DTD I was correcting it too, they said "current", and left me to it. I know I scored well they told me so when the rejected me! I've always like the idea of a random simple test at interview ever since.

    I liked:

    • Random nature - you don't worry in advance.
    • No tools to rely on - what you have in your head is all you get.
    • Open-ended, they said put as many comments as you like on the page.
    • Tests work under stress.

    I know that tests are very artificial, and mostly test people's ability to do tests, but a short random test has some uses as part of an overall process.

    As we are looking for a Perl/Web person at the moment [perl.org], I think I'll have to come up with a few quick questions of my own. I hope you don't mind me borrowing yours?

    --
    -- "It's not magic, it's work..."

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