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Apparently I'm screwed; I cut it off the cob in sheets. So I guess that means I don't care about efficiency, but need things super neat and orderly. I have always liked Prolog though...
Works out in my example. Seriously -- don't be surprised to see an interviewer offering you a cob of corn as a snack (especially since we are having summer) and watching you eating it. While this should not be a major indication into your engineering nature, I am sure it may add up as positive/negative points into said interviewer decision making process.
* Good fresh sweet corn vs. stale starchy corn
* Butter and salt vs. no butter and salt (I'm combining "butter and salt" as a single variable for simplicity - and I mean butter and salt already on the corn, not available on the side.)
Here are my completely speculative, subjective interpretations of the four possible combinations - and so you know my prejudice up front, I'm a fresh sweet corn with no butter and salt guy:
1) Stale starchy corn, no butter or salt: Your company doesn't care about quality, and doesn't even know that it doesn't care.
2) Stale starchy corn with butter and salt: Your company produces poor quality products but tries to cover it up with a slick-looking user interface.
3) Fresh sweet corn with butter and salt: Your company doesn't know quality when it sees it. It probably has a strict coding standard that dates back many years, and no one dares question whether these are good coding practices or not.
4) Fresh sweet corn, no butter or salt: Yes! Can I work here? :-)
Now that I think about it, serving fresh sweet corn with butter and salt on the side would also give the company some interesting information:
1) Interviewee immediately butters and salts the corn before tasting it: You are set in your ways - you know that corn is a starchy vegetable that needs butter and salt to be palatable, just as you know that the one language you've always coded in is the best for every situation.
2) Interviewee tastes corn first, then butters and salts it (or just doesn't eat it) if stale and starchy, or eats it plain if sweet and fresh: You know that things which appear identical are not always the same. You investigate before coding and adapt to the situation.
(No offense intended to anyone who genuinely likes butter and salt on fresh sweet corn!)
I'm flexible. A) I hate getting the kernel skins stuck in my teeth. This happens when eating directly from the cob. I spend dozens and dozens of minutes picking, flossing, and sucking my teeth to get them clean. I'd prefer to shave the kernels off with a knife. If I must eat from the cob: B) Cobs with husks attached-- you get these at festivals and fairs. Sometimes they're so frickin' delicious you have to just put u…
> Start at the left end This brings up the issue of handedness: stem in the left hand, or stem in the right hand? I'm guessing you're right-handed, thus the left end is the pointy tip of the corn?
There is another reason why you might chose spirals over rows which is that while spirals are more opportunist and agile, rows require you to work harder at the start and then reap your rewards later - perhaps a little more waterfall. Regardless of approach, your opening bite requires pushing your teeth down in between unharvested rows rows and clearing out a patch of cob. On the second bite however you can now chose…
Apparently I'm screwed; I cut it off the cob in sheets. So I guess that means I don't care about efficiency, but need things super neat and orderly. I have always liked Prolog though...
I'm a vertical man myself. I turn the corn on its side so the cylindrical part is going up/down and bite downwards. I do it so that the kernels come off cleanly and don't get stuck in your teeth (very similar to cutting them off). I wonder where that puts me?
This whole discussion has made me hungry for some corn on the cob with nice butter and salt, damn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Start at the left end This brings up the issue of handedness: stem in the left hand, or stem in the right hand? I'm guessing you're right-handed, thus the left end is the pointy tip of the corn?
Good point. (no pun intended.) I am right handed, but the stem goes on the left. I eat the bigger end first.
I eat corn exactly as you do in (C) (more or less in columns; clear a column of all corn, then shift over to the right exactly one mouth width). The difference though is that I hold it with the pointy end to my left and the stem end to my right, but I start at the pointy end. I'm left-handed.
This is nonsense. You could eat your corn in rows because adding butter to a row is a hell of a lot easier than buttering a spiral.
Now you have an entire cob coated in delicious butter.