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Comment by FartyMcFarter | Hacker News Reader

Or just like you can test a software engineer by discussing basic data structures and how they behave both in theory and in practice.

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I've had so many people tell me that it is unreasonable to ask in an interview "What's the difference between an array and a set?"... Then I ask how they'd feel about reviewing PRs from a person that does not know the difference and they mostly of change their minds about it.

To be fair, it does depend on the question. Yours is fine.

I've also seen things like "Why would you specify the # of elements when initializing an ArrayList in Java?", and you just know the person asking is the guy that sprinkles magic constants all over his code. And gives negative reviews when you don't put random (often relatively small) numbers in yours too.

Instead of hardcoding, you can specify a million configuration variables to be determined at runtime, and shift the responsibility to SRE to draft a deployment plan for that :P

Or fizzbuzz

Or test a bartender by ordering a fizzbuzz and see if they're a former software engineer who got fed up with the crunch and left to go work in a bar (something I think all of us have considered at least once).

It's been a long time since I heard a jwz reference.

I think I'm going to start calling a gin and tonic a "fizzbuzz".

Maybe more appropriate for the vodka soda which is literally nothing but fizz and buzz.

buzzfizz, I think.

You can learn a lot about an engineer by asking them to implement a linked list.

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