Interview gone wrong

#1

Post by ashu1461 » Fri, Nov 01, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

Re: Interview gone wrong

#2

Post by taxman22 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:22 AM UTC

Any time you use language specific tricks in an interview, you’re probably going to confuse your interviewer and not do well.

Re: Interview gone wrong

#3

Post by Kim_Bruning » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:22 AM UTC

This mirrors mathematical notation for things like ranges or equality checks

5 x == y == 10

Re: Interview gone wrong

#4

Post by mlinhares » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:23 AM UTC

Stopped judging candidates on "style" due to stuff like this. I only comment if the code doesn't work, if it works i don't really bother to correct code style or provide feedback on it.

45 minutes interviews aren't really the place to evaluate this.

Re: Interview gone wrong

#5

Post by fijiaarone » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:25 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Interview gone wrong

#6

Post by Buttons840 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:27 AM UTC

Python evaluates `2 == 2 == 2` to true. JavaScript evaluates the same to false. Somehow we've decided that Python is the weird one it seems.

Re: Interview gone wrong

#7

Post by pavel_lishin » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:28 AM UTC

mlinhares wrote: post #4

Stopped judging candidates on "style" due to stuff like this. I only comment if the code doesn't work, if it works i don't really bother to correct code style or provide feedback on it. 45 minutes interviews aren't really the place to evaluate this.

It sounds like the author wasn't nitpicking style - they thought the code literally wouldn't work.

(But, the intent on the interviewee's part was definitely clear - I'd definitely let this pass.)

Re: Interview gone wrong

#8

Post by zitterbewegung » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:30 AM UTC

I'm confused about this blog post. Python is mostly C inspired but actually more pseudocode inspired (which helps its popularity) which is why chained expressions exist.

Also, why would you conduct an interview in a language where even if you don't know the syntax (and this is obscure) you could have looked it up or disallowed the interview to be done in Python? I think the due diligence with this issue is more to the interviewer than Python.

Re: Interview gone wrong

#9

Post by throwaway313373 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:31 AM UTC

I don't know why didn't the candidate just explain to the interviewer what chain expressions are.

Re: Interview gone wrong

#10

Post by throwaway313373 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 2:32 AM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #6

Python evaluates `2 == 2 == 2` to true. JavaScript evaluates the same to false. Somehow we've decided that Python is the weird one it seems.

To be fair, there are edge cases [0] when it does look weird.

[0] https://github.com/satwikkansal/wtfpython?tab=readme-ov-file...