Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

techiedelight.quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

#11

Post by 0xfeba »

munin wrote: post #6

If this isn't a metaphor for the programming interview I don't know what is: http://www.techiedelight.com/multiply-two-numbers-without-us... "Implement multiplication without using loops." "Uh, okay. What do you mean by loops?" "Don't use a conditional loop." "What do you mean by a conditional loop?" "Oh, you know, the standard definition." Time passes. "I'm stuck. What is the answer?" "Oh, you just have a loop on b…

> Multiply two numbers without using multiplication operator or loops

Uh, ok:

a * b = b != 0 ? a/(1/b) : 0

Done.

EDIT: handle division by zero.

Re: Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

#15

Post by sp527 »

Most interview questions are ridiculous and don’t test for the knowledge a candidate should have. When I interview, I ask a system design problem that involves using an inverted index, a bst, understanding how to normalize data, and then being a little clever when merging some data. It tests fundamental concepts in the context of building a working solution to a meaningful problem.

I never understood why anyone would ask say DP questions in an interview. We don’t use that in 99.9% of software (I’ve never once in my career found a use case). What you’re really testing is whether or not the candidate had enough time to refresh that material. Worse still, it involves a very rigid solution pattern that’s over-specified to that class of problem and tells you nothing about what you want to know: can a candidate synthesize concepts to devise a solution to problems we actually encounter?

Re: Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

#16

Post by nonis »

quickben wrote: post #14
pmoriarty wrote: post #3

Sadly, the code examples all seem to be in C++ ... not exactly the ideal language for pedagogy.

They have stuff like bit manipulations and the likes, C++ makes sense for those.

Doesn't virtually every programming language have operators for bit manipulation?

Re: Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

#17

Post by bloaf »

munin wrote: post #6

If this isn't a metaphor for the programming interview I don't know what is: http://www.techiedelight.com/multiply-two-numbers-without-us... "Implement multiplication without using loops." "Uh, okay. What do you mean by loops?" "Don't use a conditional loop." "What do you mean by a conditional loop?" "Oh, you know, the standard definition." Time passes. "I'm stuck. What is the answer?" "Oh, you just have a loop on b…

Mult(A,B) = Exp(Log(A) + Log(B))

Re: Data structures and algorithms interview questions and their solutions

#19

Post by mike_ivanov »

bloaf wrote: post #17
munin wrote: post #6

If this isn't a metaphor for the programming interview I don't know what is: http://www.techiedelight.com/multiply-two-numbers-without-us... "Implement multiplication without using loops." "Uh, okay. What do you mean by loops?" "Don't use a conditional loop." "What do you mean by a conditional loop?" "Oh, you know, the standard definition." Time passes. "I'm stuck. What is the answer?" "Oh, you just have a loop on b…

Mult(A,B) = Exp(Log(A) + Log(B))

You didn't pass (overqualified, will likely be bored by the job).
Post reply on HN