PERL CGI Beginners - OT: Re: Fwd: Interview Questions

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OT: Re: Fwd: Interview Questions

Wiggins D'Anconia

2004-05-22, 11:32 am

drieux wrote:[color=darkred]
>

Sorry forgot to toggle off the 'bitterness' flag, apparently I have been
at this way to long.....

[color=darkred]

Couple of points that helped to create my bitterness,

1) hopefully if I were put in a position to actually interview, test so
to speak, someone's aptitude in Perl or any technical skill, I would
look to learn or expect to already know that skill, otherwise I have no
way to judge what the interviewee provides as answers anyways. which
leads to point 2....

2) as someone put in a position to handle hiring and being knowledgeable
in a particular field, at least as well as need be for the position, I
should be able to formulate my own questions that are pertinent to the
situation.

I guess I have been to entirely too many interviews where the
interviewee new next to nothing about anything, so much so that they
couldn't tell if I was an idiot or an expert (I don't claim to know
which I actually fall in if either, just know they can't tell either).
[color=darkred]

Which brings me to my next point of bitterness....

3) If I wanted Perl questions (as the OP didn't specifically request CGI
questions) then I would go to a different Perl list, if I wanted CGI
questions I wouldn't ask for Perl ones. Now the bitterness, been to too
many interviews and seen too many postings where Perl == CGI when they
very much don't, despite what some well known and completely useless
recruiting testers may suggest. I could be an ace Perl programmer and
not know thing one about CGI, or I could be a great CGI programmer and
not know 5% of what is available from Perl (trust me I was, well not
sure about the "great" part, but sufficient).
[color=darkred]

Right... but your lead engineer didn't have to ask experts what those
questions were (see point 2).
[color=darkred]

A perfect example of a question that will likely find you Perl
programmers as opposed to CGI scripters. Depending on what you want and
how much you want to pay it may be overkill....
[color=darkred]

Hmm not sure about that last bit, depends on how much C code you have
around for doing web work. Personally outside of building XS modules
others have provided on CPAN, I tend to avoid it like the plague. But
then I would say I am pretty good at building CPAN modules and other
softwares, but haven't written line one of XS...
[color=darkred]

Boy it is really time I up and moved my *ss to a place where Perl is
taken seriously...
[color=darkred]

True, but the ability to decipher that from the answers provided by a
candidate depends, to me, on knowing how to generate those questions in
the first place.
[color=darkred]

When can I interview... would certainly be a breathe of fresh air
compared to the interviews I have been in. So you guys actually expect
your candidates to have brains? what a novel concept, I will mention it
to my boss ;-)....

Seriously, I understand there *might* be a place for this, just don't
think it is on a CGI list, jobs-discuss, maybe, though they don't seem
to enjoy these types of discussions either.

To anyone out there doing hiring, please think about what questions you
are and aren't capable of asking.....

http://danconia.org

Shaun Fryer

2004-05-22, 11:32 am

> > > what is CPAN?
>
> A perfect example of a question that will likely find you Perl
> programmers as opposed to CGI scripters. Depending on what you want and
> how much you want to pay it may be overkill....

It might help if you clarify what you mean by a CGI script. Do you mean
any script that uses CGI.pm (or cgi-lib.pl)? Are there other modules/packages
you use specifically for CGI scripting in addition to that one? What other
criteria do you mean to imply? DBI? Apache::Session? HTML::Template? XYZ.pm?
CGI alone is too broad. Chances are your company doesn't make use of even a
10th of what Perl has to offer for CGI applications. Not to mention that one
can hardly be a Perl CGI developer without having a decent working knowledge
of "practical extraction and reporting language" in the more generalized
sense.

How about looking at your company's existing codebase and coming up with
general questions pertainant to it's functionality. For instance, say you
use CGI.pm extensively (which I assume is likely). Have a simple CGI.pm
problem prepared on paper before hand which the interviewee(s) are asked to
solve.

Or ask them to write a short CGI application to take a username from a form
input and display a greeting specific to the user via CGI.pm functions. This
should take no more than 5 minutes for most experienced CGI developers. On
the otherhand, if your company makes extensive use of some other
module/package, create one or more questions based on that instead. Or at
least ask the interviewee if s/he knows what it's for, how to find the
manual, etc.

Even for non-developers, there are a host of simple test questions that one
might come up with simply by buying an O'Reilly CGI cookbook or visiting
perldoc.com. In the end it's about ROI, so you have to ask what's going to
produce the best/desired result, and then do that thing with due focus.

Personally I love it when I get asked these sorts of questions in an
interview, because it vastly increases my confidence in the interviewer's
competence in addition to allowing me to prove my own. First impressions
count for alot, regardless of which side of the table you're facing.

--
=====================
Shaun Fryer
=====================
http://sourcery.ca/
=====================

Drieux

2004-05-22, 11:32 am

On Apr 20, 2004, at 8:05 PM, Wiggins d'Anconia wrote:
[..]
> To anyone out there doing hiring, please think about
> what questions you are and aren't capable of asking.....
[..]

first off props to Shaun for a worthwhile set of distinctions
between CGI as the "common gateway interface" - irregardless
of the coding language - and CGI.pm...

Secondly to Wiggin's well run rant!
Good Answers!

I can empathise with him at more levels
than I like to think about. But also think
about the problems of the poor 'tech guy'
who has been tasked with doing the interviewing,
and then has to deal with

a. upgrading the HR staff to be
a1. Perl Aware
a2. Web Technology Aware
a3. PreScreening enabled, based upon a1, a2
and what Upper Manglement ${Really_Wants}

b. formalizing their questions in compliance
with the laws of the country in which
they will be doing the hiring interview

c. Clarifying with Upper Manglement
c1. what they are willing to put on the table
c2. what they really want
- insert pointy hair mangleMent joke here
c3. when is the interview over and folks
are just playing around, but having fun
in a technical manner
c4. that technical play is not merely horsing around

d. Sorting out the 'cut out moments' - how does one
'know that the interview is over' and not worth
going forward - and exiting it gracefully for all
concerned in a positive and constructive manner.

The challenge is on both sides of the interviewing table.
And I think it is useful from time to time to take a
quick review of "Perl Coding as Profession" and
specifically it's applicability to 'web technologies'.

That helps folks work out which side of the interviewing
table they prefer to work on, and what they should be
thinking about and dealing with.

ciao
drieux

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