Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: code quality Message-ID: <6108@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 21:57:25 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.6108 Posted: Sat Nov 2 21:57:25 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 21:57:25 EST References: <2012@brl-tgr.ARPA> <8952@ritcv.UUCP> <312@codas.UUCP> <132@desint.UUCP>, <768@inset.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 19 > Ideally, I would like interviewees to be asked to code some small and simple > function to a given spec. at the interview. Actually, utzoo has occasionally done this, as a follow-on to an interview. (We haven't done it much because we don't do much hiring, and when we do hire, the hiree usually isn't a total stranger.) Our standard test case was a program to turn Unix text (tabs, backspaces, newlines) into fixed- length records with ANSI carriage control. (We used to have a practical application for this, driving a Xerox 9700 laser printer.) It's substantial enough to be a good test of ability, and small enough that you can ask someone to do it without first promising to hire him. It worked well: one applicant who talked well got rejected quickly as hopeless, while Geoff Collyer came up with a neater piece of code than the one we were using in production. (Geoff isn't utzoo!geoff because the spot we had open was for an applications programmer, and somebody else offered him a systems-programming job at about the same time.) -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry