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Comment by ctide | Hacker News Reader

'I don't know' is never a good answer. If someone asks you about some specific javascript testing framework, for example, and your answer is simply 'I don't know', that implies that you know nothing about javascript testing. Replying 'I don't know about X, but I've worked with Y in the past, and heard about Z' is an answer that shows that you are familiar with the problem space, which is vastly more important than knowing some random piece of tech.

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heh I agree with you conceptually but I've been in talks that are like (given X is a concept/library/framework) "I don't know about X, but --" "Oh you don't know about X? We don't want to know or understand anything about people who don't BELIEVE in X. You're disGUSting!"

But I never said I personally don't agree with the technique... so the response I go with is "Well, I agree with the philosophy there but my previous employers didn't budget any time for X." which they seem to absolutely hate anyway.

The reason I ultimately went corporate was because the hiring practices were more algorithm/concept-based (web services, AJAX practices, software design principles) rather than library or language-specific. I was hired into a Java team without even knowing Java. About 3 months later I found I could program on any part of their stack if they really needed me to.

Hiring practices that are not based on assessing a candidate's capabilities strike me as egotistical and pessimistic. I'm going to keep reading theoretical Comp Sci texts to see if I can get to the next phase of my career rather than joining the learn-every-framwork-under-the-sun-OR-ELSE movement.

Look at it another way.

Would you have wanted to work with people who are so short-sighted anyway?

As anyone who conceptually can't understand that it doesn't matter that JS testing framework 1 is going to be similar to testing frameworks 2, 3 & 4 is probably going to be populated by a whole load of crap, probably mono-linguistic, developers.

A lot of development jobs & the developers that work in those jobs, suck. And they're going to be pretty painful if you care about code.

I was at a talk last night and the speaker was talking about how to help new developers when they first start in a company and he started going on about giving the new developers access to the live servers & FTPing the changes to the live server, etc., etc.

All I could think is 'right, that company is now a never work for, avoid people who have worked there'.

No automated deployment? Having to give new developers access to live servers? In 2013? Pathetic.

When people say you shouldn't be afraid to say I don't know they don't mean say 'I don't know' and then stare in silence at the person asking the question.

How you phrase the whole response is important, as it is with every response in an interview, but what more people need to realize that the phrase 'I don't know' is not something that should never be uttered or admitted.

I think "I don't know" can be a perfectly acceptable answer. It's certainly preferable to awkward grasping at straws. I don't expect even a great candidate to answer every question. Sometimes questions are simple probes to find bounds of knowledge and experience.

I know a lot about game development. I've shipped quite a few games. I've worked on PC, consoles, iOS, gameplay, engines, clients, game servers, and more. I've never worked on the server backend infrastructure, graphics programmer, nor have I used Unity3D.

If you ask me a real question about SQL or database management just about the only answer I can give you is "I don't know". I can't to tell you any differences, pros, or cons related to any javascript library nor any of the now numerous popular databases.

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