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Re: Python Interview Questions

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  Re: Python Interview Questions dncarac@gmail.com - 2012-07-09 17:01 -0700
    Re: Python Interview Questions Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2012-07-09 19:19 -0500
      Re: Python Interview Questions Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2012-07-09 20:27 -0400
        Re: Python Interview Questions Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2012-07-09 20:05 -0500
        Re: Python Interview Questions Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2012-07-10 11:29 +0200
          Re: Python Interview Questions Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-07-10 16:44 +0000
            Re: Python Interview Questions Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2012-07-10 19:07 +0200
          Re: Python Interview Questions Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-07-10 19:44 -0700
        Re: Python Interview Questions Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2012-07-10 09:05 -0700
          Re: Python Interview Questions Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-07-10 16:34 +0000
            Re: Python Interview Questions Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-07-11 02:42 +1000
            Re: Python Interview Questions Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2012-07-10 10:02 -0700
            Re: Python Interview Questions David Robinow <drobinow@gmail.com> - 2012-07-10 22:13 -0400
        Re: Python Interview Questions Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2012-07-10 18:26 -0400
        Re: Python Interview Questions Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-07-10 16:59 -0600

#25113 — Re: Python Interview Questions

Tim,

I've read your list and with one exception it all looks very reasonable.  (As an hobbiest, I'm amazed at just how much I have picked up.)

The set of questions I'm not sure I understand is the 'What version did ... appear?' questions.  This, to me, doesn't seem to indicate any programming experience or expertise.  A question asking 'Do you understand different versions?' and 'How would you find out whether a particular version can do a particular thing?'  (i.e. which version can you use on GAE?) would seem to give good information.  'How do decorators work?' would seem to give good information.

So my question is: what information are you looking for by asking which version introduced decorators?

With respect,

Den

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#25114

On 07/09/12 19:01, dncarac@gmail.com wrote:
> The set of questions I'm not sure I understand is the 'What
> version did ... appear?' questions.  This, to me, doesn't seem to
> indicate any programming experience or expertise.  A question
> asking 'Do you understand different versions?' and 'How would you
> find out whether a particular version can do a particular thing?'
> (i.e. which version can you use on GAE?) would seem to give good
> information.

The reason *I* ask them is that we have some 2.4 installations
(where things like "with" aren't available) and at the time I typed
up the list, there was some earlier 2.2 and 2.3 code out there where
decorators or sqlite[*] didn't work.

So I guess it's a bit of a "how long have they been programming in
python" experience aspect.  Programmers that have been around a
while often remember the frustration of $FEATURE_LACK and then the
relief of a much better way to do it.  The functionality of
decorators was around far earlier, but the clean syntactic sugar
made it much nicer to use.  The sqlite/sqlite3 libraries were
around, but you had to install them yourself (whether from source, a
custom installer, or your package manager).

As mentioned in another branch of this thread, I don't require
python historians, but do prefer folks that know which features to
check availability for deployment.

-tkc

[*] without installing an add-on

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#25115

In article <mailman.1972.1341879526.4697.python-list@python.org>,
 Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> wrote:

> As mentioned in another branch of this thread, I don't require
> python historians, but do prefer folks that know which features to
> check availability for deployment.

Heh.  Tell me, when did strings get methods? :-)

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#25116

On 07/09/12 19:27, Roy Smith wrote:
>> prefer folks that know which features to check availability for
>> deployment.
> 
> Heh.  Tell me, when did strings get methods? :-)

IIRC, ~2.0?  I'm cognizant of the shift happening from the string
module to string methods, but I wouldn't expect deep history
knowledge--last I checked, RedHat still supports a RHEL version that
ships with 2.4, so that's about as far back as I'd probe these days
(so I'd drop the decorators question now).  Certainly not a
deal-breaker either way.  Just more data points.

-tkc

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#25128

Tim Chase wrote:
> On 07/09/12 19:27, Roy Smith wrote:
>   
>>> prefer folks that know which features to check availability for
>>> deployment.
>>>       
>> Heh.  Tell me, when did strings get methods? :-)
>>     
>
> IIRC, ~2.0?  I'm cognizant of the shift happening from the string
> module to string methods, but I wouldn't expect deep history
> knowledge--last I checked, RedHat still supports a RHEL version that
> ships with 2.4, so that's about as far back as I'd probe these days
> (so I'd drop the decorators question now).  Certainly not a
> deal-breaker either way.  Just more data points.
>
> -tkc
>
>
>
>   
Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as the 
version where feature X has been introduced ? Just tell him that feature 
X has been introducted in version Y, costless 2.5sec training. Don't you 
want to hire someone that knows things you don't and benefit from each 
others abilities, learning from each others, improving the company 
global skill range ?

JM

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#25141

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:29:24 +0200, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:

> Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as the
> version where feature X has been introduced ? Just tell him that feature
> X has been introducted in version Y, costless 2.5sec training. Don't you
> want to hire someone that knows things you don't and benefit from each
> others abilities, learning from each others, improving the company
> global skill range ?

The reason for the question is to get some idea of how well the candidate 
actually knows Python. If you ask them questions that you don't know the 
answer to, how will you tell if they're right?

I certainly wouldn't disqualify a candidate if they didn't know what 
version introduced (say) decorators. If they said "what's a decorator?" 
or "version 10", that would be a hint that they don't actually know much 
about Python. If they said "I don't know, I'm still stuck on Python 2.3", 
they would get a point for honesty and lose a point for being way out of 
date. If they said version 2.3 or 2.5 (it's actually 2.4), well, that's 
close enough.

Of course, an acceptable answer would be "buggered if I know, but if you 
give me a minute, I'll google it for you".


-- 
Steven

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#25146

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:29:24 +0200, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
>
>   
>> Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as the
>> version where feature X has been introduced ? Just tell him that feature
>> X has been introducted in version Y, costless 2.5sec training. Don't you
>> want to hire someone that knows things you don't and benefit from each
>> others abilities, learning from each others, improving the company
>> global skill range ?
>>     
>
> The reason for the question is to get some idea of how well the candidate 
> actually knows Python. If you ask them questions that you don't know the 
> answer to, how will you tell if they're right?
>
> I certainly wouldn't disqualify a candidate if they didn't know what 
> version introduced (say) decorators. If they said "what's a decorator?" 
> or "version 10", that would be a hint that they don't actually know much 
> about Python. If they said "I don't know, I'm still stuck on Python 2.3", 
> they would get a point for honesty and lose a point for being way out of 
> date. If they said version 2.3 or 2.5 (it's actually 2.4), well, that's 
> close enough.
>
> Of course, an acceptable answer would be "buggered if I know, but if you 
> give me a minute, I'll google it for you".
>
>
>   
Must be a cultural thing. We don't question people experience that much 
here. They'll be challenged anyway during the trial period (6 months 
during which the contract can be cancelled anytime without any reason). 
Actually I think it would be considered quite rude to challenge someone 
with questions right after he told you he worked 5 years as technical 
leader on a software developped in python for instance.

I've never been asked nor did I asked to go into such technical details. 
Interviews are more about years of experience, projects, working with 
teams, carreer expectations, distance between home and workplace, 
willingness to work weekends when required.

I'm no saying one way is better than another. I'm making an observation 
on how different can be an interview from one location to another.

JM

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#25163

On Jul 10, 4:29 am, Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmic...@sequans.com>
wrote:
> Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as the
> version where feature X has been introduced ? Just tell him that feature
> X has been introducted in version Y, costless 2.5sec training. Don't you
> want to hire someone that knows things you don't and benefit from each
> others abilities, learning from each others, improving the company
> global skill range ?
>
> JM

Ha! Intelligent people are scary to bosses. They want robots Jean.
Robots that are *just* intelligent enough to reduce their own work
load whist NOT intelligent enough to render them obsolete.

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#25137

Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
> Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as the 
> version where feature X has been introduced ?

As an example from today, if someone claimed to have 5+ years of Python 
experience, but didn't know that 'with' was standard in 2.6 (or at least 
the end of the 2.x cycle) I would be suspicious that they actually had 
the experience they claimed.

~Ethan~

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#25139

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:05:50 -0700, Ethan Furman wrote:

> Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
>> Why would you want to hire someone that knows something pointless as
>> the version where feature X has been introduced ?
> 
> As an example from today, if someone claimed to have 5+ years of Python
> experience, but didn't know that 'with' was standard in 2.6 (or at least
> the end of the 2.x cycle) I would be suspicious that they actually had
> the experience they claimed.

Be careful of jumping to conclusions though. Perhaps they have five years 
experience with Python 1.5, 2.3 and 2.4 on Centos systems. Of course, if 
they try to sell themselves as having five years experience with Python 
3.2 and they don't know anything about the with statement, that tells you 
everything you need to know.



-- 
Steven

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#25140

On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> Of course, if they try to sell themselves as having
> five years experience with Python 3.2...

... then they've been borrowing Guido's time machine for personal purposes.

ChrisA

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#25144

Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Steven D'Aprano
> <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
>> Of course, if they try to sell themselves as having
>> five years experience with Python 3.2...
> 
> ... then they've been borrowing Guido's time machine for personal purposes.

Reminds me of a job posting a few years ago where the prospective 
employer wanted three plus years experience in some language, and that 
language had only been created a year and a half before.

~Ethan~

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#25162

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
...
>
> Reminds me of a job posting a few years ago where the prospective employer
> wanted three plus years experience in some language, and that language had
> only been created a year and a half before.
 I saw several of those when Java was new.

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#25158

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:05:50 -0700, Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:

> As an example from today, if someone claimed to have 5+ years of Python 
> experience, but didn't know that 'with' was standard in 2.6 (or at least 
> the end of the 2.x cycle) I would be suspicious that they actually had 
> the experience they claimed.
>

>From the 2.5 help file:
"""
3.4.9 With Statement Context Managers 
New in version 2.5. 
"""
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
        wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#25160

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber
<wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:05:50 -0700, Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
> declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:
>
>> As an example from today, if someone claimed to have 5+ years of Python
>> experience, but didn't know that 'with' was standard in 2.6 (or at least
>> the end of the 2.x cycle) I would be suspicious that they actually had
>> the experience they claimed.
>>
>
> >From the 2.5 help file:
> """
> 3.4.9 With Statement Context Managers
> New in version 2.5.
> """

In 2.5 the with statement requires a __future__ import, so can't be
considered "standard".

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