> 1. If they are competent programmers. 2. Whether they will be productive at your company/project.
> His opinion is that the second question is much harder to answer, and he doesn't know how to reliably do it, and whether there is a way to answer it.
In my experience, I look for signs that someone is a child trapped in an adult's body. (With a lot of leeway for younger candidates.)
IE, what I'm looking for is someone who isn't going to pick silly arguments, get into pissing matches in code reviews, or argue with facts of the requirements.
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Years ago I used to use an interview question based around the differences of XML libraries built into .Net. The point was for the candidate to demonstrate that they understood tradeoffs; but one candidate suddenly took the tone of a teenager and yelled, "I don't want to work with XML, I want to work with JSON."
They clearly failed #2. It wasn't because they didn't like XML, it was because they rejected the point of the question.
> His opinion is that the second question is much harder to answer, and he doesn't know how to reliably do it, and whether there is a way to answer it.
In my experience, I look for signs that someone is a child trapped in an adult's body. (With a lot of leeway for younger candidates.)
IE, what I'm looking for is someone who isn't going to pick silly arguments, get into pissing matches in code reviews, or argue with facts of the requirements.
---
Years ago I used to use an interview question based around the differences of XML libraries built into .Net. The point was for the candidate to demonstrate that they understood tradeoffs; but one candidate suddenly took the tone of a teenager and yelled, "I don't want to work with XML, I want to work with JSON."
They clearly failed #2. It wasn't because they didn't like XML, it was because they rejected the point of the question.