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Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

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Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#161

Post by lomnakkus »

benched wrote: post #94
badman_ting wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who claims to know JS and doesn't have "this" down cold is either a disaster waiting to happen, or a disaster in progress.

Now, hold on there. These "anyone who" statements chafe me; like the junior dev who exclaimed "anyone who doesn't write unit tests shouldn't call themselves an engineer" in a meeting filled with people 15 years his senior who had collectively shipped far, far more successful software than him, without writing tests. Several years ago, I led two different front-end web teams at a large, well-known company. I wrote a l…

It's only upon reflecting upon "this" recently that I realized that it is (effectively) a global (thread-local) variable set by the X.Y() syntax. (I mean, I understood to be the case, but I just didn't realize the impliciations for understanding "this".)

The ECMAScript committe are taking steps to make "this" more useful, but the current semantic is so insane that I don't it's particularly surprising that people who aren't language lawyers don't understand it.

(*) Given that Javascript uses a single-threaded model.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#162

Post by thenerdfiles »

alxndr wrote: post #146
thenerdfiles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern Web Components/Polymers assume that Discrete Front End modules include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And then there's http://prezi.com/piifihs2ohet/test-driven-css/ . There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. CSS and HTML have to be given architectures, where we have to name these "files". What can you do with jQuery if your CSS and HTML are named and mixed up with…

You missed the punchline: There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

Off by one again. Dammit.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#163

Post by p3drosola »

hawkharris wrote: post #31

One problem is that many people associate front-end development mainly with HTML and CSS. HTML and CSS are not programming languages. I say this a front-end developer who has to write HTML, CSS and JavaScript on a daily basis. Yes, strictly speaking, HTML and CSS may be considered programming languages, but they lack control structures, design patterns and other interesting tenants of computer science. Like the autho…

I agree completely. At the company I work for, we develop a complex client-side js app. We've got "backenders" who write Ruby, "frontenders" who write CSS + HTML, and "middlenders" who write really fucking awesome javascript.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#164

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

drgath wrote: post #147
platz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt Effective Javascript was pretty on par with The Good Parts, and even better in some aspects.

I concur. I recently finished Effective JavaScript, and found it to be an excellent and insightful read.

I'll 4th this recommendation thread for those still on the fence. This and also Secrets of the Javascript Ninja.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#165

Post by svachalek »

debaserab2 wrote: post #151
gravity13 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just learn what 'this' means because, seriously, you're a programmer and it's not that hard to figure out.

That means that every person who reads your code also must understand "this" correctly in order to interpret your code correctly. In certain team environments, I avoid 'this' because the programmer who is looking at this file next may not understand it's proper usage.

Come on, there are what, half a dozen keywords in JavaScript? It's not that complicated.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#166

Post by byroot »

matwood wrote: post #157
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I don't even write JS much and I know 'this' is a trap question.

It's not a trap. It's just required knowledge.

Saying you're a Javascript developer without understanding the behaviour of `this`, is like saying you're a C developer without understanding what a pointer is.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#167

Post by roneesh »

wturner wrote: post #80
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I've been doing Javascript for a few years and recently answered a few StackOverflow questions. One was regarding "this".If anyone wants to hire my ass feel free to contact me. One of my techniques for learning has been by going on interviews and flopping, then going back and learning all the interview question material on my own time. Wash and repeat.I've been doing this bullshit since the first day I started teachi…

I found this heartening. I've recently transitioned from Mechanical Engineering to Web Dev and am beginning to interview. Just had my first interview, and I feel like everything discussed made me better.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#168

Post by __derek__ »

steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

On the one hand, that makes me want to decry the state of the world and of our profession. On the other, it's kind of heartening to know that that's the state of the competition (so to speak) when I want to change jobs.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#169

Post by __derek__ »

teleclimber wrote: post #77
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

To the people who wish they could answer that question with confidence, I recommend getting this book: http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software... Just got it and I feel like it clarified so many things about Javascript that I didn't have down cold as a self-taught pragmatist.

Agreed. I cannot recommend that book enough. It's a natural extension of The Good Parts and should be considered required reading (in the same way that Effective Java is for Java developers).

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#170

Post by pedalpete »

scrabble wrote: post #89
vikas5678 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, interviewing developers for front-end positions has been a nightmare for me too. I interviewed about 40 developers to fill 3 new positions. Yikes. "This is how its done in JQuery" is not a acceptable answer! I expect atleast some basic knowledge of DOM manipulation without using a library.

I wonder how many front-end people out there currently believe that JavaScript is jQuery and don't have a solid grasp of the language, instead focusing on use of a single library.

From my interviews over the last few months, apparently it is a large number of developers. I've had interviewers check that when I say javascript I don't mean jQuery.
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