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A comment on If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?. Parent comment

Re:If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard t... by disintegore on Monday August 30, 2021 @02:13PM (#28358945)
It doesn't help that so many concepts on CompSci show up in different places under different names and labels.

I haven't participated in technical interviews in a long time, but when I was asked to do it, I made it a point to throw as many lifelines as I could until I got a satisfying answer. For instance, if want to know if the person understands generics and they can't answer the question outright then I'll ask them about C++ templates. Similarly, if someone can't describe the term "idempotence" I'll ask them "can you tell me what makes a function pure".

Mind you those terms aren't interchangeable but if you catch one it should be trivial to understand the latter.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard t... by nitrogen on Monday August 30, 2021 @03:42PM (#28360022)
Even if someone's never heard of idempotence, it's enlightening if you can get them to discover it for themselves by asking questions like, "What happens if this request gets sent twice due to a network issue?"
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