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I'll say this much, if interviewers provide a prospect with some source code and tell him he's got the job if he can find/fix some bug they've been struggling with for months (they won't tell you that part), then...run.
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maze3 wrote: Job interviews should be a 2 way interview.
They are, it's just that most interviewee's do not understand their own position and limit themselves.
Which is good for me, means less competition 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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maze3 wrote: Job interviews should be a 2 way interview.
It totally is.
I once took a job that sounded really good, microservices, Azure, CI/CD, everything I was looking for at the time.
But when I got there they had nothing of the sort.
Turns out their "architect" had read about microservices, went to the development team and shouted something like "we have to do microservices!" and the person who interviewed me just kind of mimicked it.
No one in the team was feeling anything for microservices though, and management forbid the use of "the cloud" because it was "not safe" 
And so I sat there, doing the exact same work as before without microservices or cloud, except I now did it a 100 km's further than my previous job 
I was a contractor so I would be off after six months, but after four months I gave them my notice and ultimately ended up finishing a project and left after seven months.
If it was up to them I'd still be there though...
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Unless you have a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), signed by your prospective employee, before showing them the code, I suspect your company's lawyers or senior management might not be happy with you.
So, if for no other purpose than upsetting lawyers, I vote yes 
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Showing the interviewee how the team they are being considered for works is fine. Let them, meet a few people in person before them having to make any decisions.
Showing code on the other hand is not as transparent in my opinion. Bad people can write good code, and I for one can work with bad code but not bad people. In fact the current project I'm doing (ASP .NET MVC 3.5) is so badly written (transferred from another co.) that I had to decide on my own to implement DI in 2018 along with upgrading the framework to MVC 5 (not getting paid for either). But I have stayed with the same team for 4 years now. They are great people and that is what really counts.
modified 15-Sep-18 9:06am.
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thanks all for some interesting replies.
Some of them had me thinking if the server network manager showed me the servers in my interview, and all the cables were one color, that might make me want to run out screaming.
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Let me ask a different set of questions?
1) How often do you review code? (Code Reviews)
2) Do you have a Wiki with the details of how all code should be written/formatted, etc?
3) Have you made the code reviews combative or helpful?
4) Do new programmers get to participate in Code Reviews?
Then, I would show the PROSPECTIVE new hire the Wiki, and ask what they agree and disagree with, and why?
We allow exceptions to almost EVERY rule, if it is justified, makes the block easier to debug/analyze/or validate. But we push for consensus in these cases. Some things are defensible, others are not.
And if you are not doing code reviews. THEN you have found your problem. Our experience shows that without code reviews, NOBODY will take full ownership of the code, and continue to blame the people before them. We make you cleanup EVERY FILE you touch. AND we are flexible. The entire file has to be reformatted with default settings (if they were not applied before), and then the section that was "truly updated" is reviewed in detail. (Meaning EVERYTHING newly written or truly changed MUST follow our coding standards).
The results are amazing! Errors/Fixes are way down. The size/scope of fixes are a great predictor of the project being "done" and "stable" (if the last few fixes have been One liners. And we see nothing else, and it is in use, there are usually few if any gotchas remaining, and these things don't come back to haunt us. But a major rewrite... Ugghhh...)
Fix your culture first, and hire people who gravitate towards the rules!
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maze3 wrote: Was wondering if anyone been in an interview (interviewer or interviewee) as example of the existing product code is used?
I've never done that. I've been tempted, but the code is an implementation of an algorithm, and all real world code is messy. I never expect anybody to be capable of dealing with that kind of mess in the context of an interview. Besides, the algorithm is the interesting topic to ask about, so I distill out a simple example and ask about that.
When I ask questions like this, I'm almost never looking to see if they get the "right" answer because I don't ask about textbook problems. I do, however, look at how they approach providing an answer, what they see, what they consider important, etc.
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Is mugging people in a multi-storey car park wrong on so many levels?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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The police may think the mugger is gonif [^] they on the wrong level. May be necessary to ramp up the search.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Yes. I would just have the mug shot, there and then.
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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I know you have some buses like that in England, but how many multi-storey cars do you have besides that?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: how many multi-storey cars do you have besides that?
Well, obviously quite a few: Double Decker Racing[^]
And Driving on roof of a car[^]
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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On what tier should we get off then?
Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film. Steven Wright
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Meanwhile I heard recent action on muggings in elevators has had mixed results: some report it's going up, others report it's going down.
Message Signature
(Click to edit ->)
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Ooooh - that one pushes all my buttons! 
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That's a level of violence I simply cannot support 
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So I have been enjoying the show the Expanse. Then I started the books. Actually pretty well follows the books except for some obvious changes like Bobby is no where near as large as she is in the books (would be hard to find such a large woman, hell Sgt Harper was not where near big enough either on the Sharpe series), and the Belters are not as tall and skinny... I was just going past the show in the books when the season ended and found out SyFy had canceled. I was bummed, but then found out it has been picked up (Lucifer also, which is based on Neil Gaiman series), so that was good. Well finished the 6th book, and have to wait for the 7th, and can't even get my fix with the show right now 
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Excellent! Who picked up The Expanse?
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Amazon did.
667: The neighbour of the Beast
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Fans protested the cancellation, gathering over 100,000 signatures for an online petition. They lobbied Amazon Studios and Netflix to pick the series up; a crowdfunding campaign paid for an airplane to fly a "#SaveTheExpanse" banner around Amazon Studios. Celebrities including Wil Wheaton, George R. R. Martin, Patton Oswalt and Andreas Mogensen supported the campaign.
On May 26, at the International Space Development Conference, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon picked the series up for additional seasons.
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Yay
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Infosys Irvine wrote: Well finished the 6th book, and have to wait for the 7th
Book 7 (Persepolis Rising) has been out for ages now. I'm currently waiting for book 8 (Tiamat's Wrath), which has recently been pushed back to the end of March.
Still, it might give me a chance to make a dent in the other eight large piles of books waiting to be read. If only someone would stop buying new ones faster than the old ones get read! 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Sorry screwed up...have to wait for the 8th. Book 7 puts us in the middle of the Admiral Duarte's takeover, and it looks like he is unstoppable. Should have stopped on 6 since that ended in the decisive destruction of the Free Navy. It took 30 years for Holden to find another mess. Wonder if thinks just go to sh*t because of Holden. Sorry to see Clarissa Mao go...I really liked the character, but I just knew that it was going to happen long before it did, that she was going to have to use her implants, and it would kill her. Of course sort of wrong about that since she was beat to hell after her last fight anyway.
The last two enemies have certainly proven to be enemies you love to hate.
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Damn...did not see it has been pushed back. Sure we will not end up with another George R. R. Martin. Supposed to have book The Winds of Winter out years ago, and now there is not even a date. He may die first, and I guess maybe we can get Brandon Sanderson to complete the series. At least he gets it done.
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