Re:Steve Ballmer's incorrect binary search interview question
by extr on Friday September 06, 2024 @04:17PM
(#41469401)
Totally my personal opinion, but not knowing the approximate population of the country you live in betrays a pretty serious lack of curiosity about the world. Obviously a judgement call on how far off is "far off", but it just gives a funny feeling, you know?
Re:Steve Ballmer's incorrect binary search interview question
by NeoTar on Sunday September 08, 2024 @07:47AM
(#41479837)
True, but in the context of making a ‘finger in the air’ calculation, 1 billion or 100 million (approximating to the nearest power of ten) should be “good enough’.
And if you’re interviewing, consider that for a decent proportion of people it may not be the country they live in (at least at the time you’re asking the question).
Is that comically bad? It's only like three times too much (if you're using the American, 10^9 billion), but we'd accept a much greater margin of error in some other assumptions (like in the classic 'how many Piano tuners are in the city', I think an assumption of 1-in-30 or 1-in-300 households having a piano (that would need tuning) all sound like they could be true!)