Maybe, but personally I'd be pretty weirded out if someone who could figure out the significance and use of the string I posted could not figure out curl.

Is that just me?

Based on personal experience, I'd respectfully say it's just you. I do see your point, though.

I've met plenty of people who could code up a simple web UI but weren't very familiar with the underlying HTTP protocol. I guess my point is that knowledge of the protocol and web infrastructure is more valuable (sometimes) than just being a person who knows how to slap something together.

YMMV.

A lot of devs who only know Visual Studio have never even heard of curl and other unixy utilities.

Hey team, maybe I'm wrong but I don't get the sense that this is a "test" for entry. It says more about who they are and what they're about than it does the applicants.

Agreed - more of a marketing ploy to catch the attention of their target demographic (people who use JSON).

Curl?? Real men use Telnet...

Telnet is not the best thing to use when talking to non-telnet servers since it's not a raw protocol that just passes data back and forth. For example, telnet appends an ASCII NUL to any CR in the stream. Netcat gives a truly raw socket.

Thanks, good to know.

compare:

    $ telnet www.example.com 80
    Trying 192.0.43.10...
    Connected to www.example.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    GET / HTTP/1.1
    Host: www.example.com
    
    HTTP/1.0 302 Found
    Location: http://www.iana.org/domains/example/
    Server: BigIP
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Content-Length: 0

    ^]
    telnet> quit
    Connection closed.
    $

with:

    $ curl -i www.example.com
    HTTP/1.0 302 Found
    Location: http://www.iana.org/domains/example/
    Server: BigIP
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Content-Length: 0

    $

- Real men type less and do more.

Of course. Abstraction is important and powerful, and the right tool for the right job etc etc. But that still means there's a certain thrill in submitting HTTP POSTs via magnetized needle.