Re: [tlug] New programming revision site - by a TLUG'er

[Kenneth Burling <burlingk@example.com>]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 12:30 PM, 黒鉄章 <akira@example.com> wrote:
> Hi Fredric,
>    thanks for the candid feedback.
>

> Having discussed this many times I think that we all share this idea, that
> it's not worth taxing your memory with minor details. That's what I said.
> That's what all my friends and colleagues said.
> Then, I went to job interviews. And you know what, interviewers nearly never
> think that. They really believe that if you can't remember the trivial
> differences, e.g. SQL's substring function's start pos parameter is
> 1-indexed rather 0-indexed, that you were clearly lying about having built
> data warehouses.


I will be straight up front, I only have anecdotal commentary to go
on.  My last computer related jobs were tech support, and that was a
long time ago.  Been in the Navy for seven years now. ^_^

Anyway, I have often heard it said that the actual programmers and
developers rarely do the interviews.  It is often a Human Resources
guy that may only know what he has read from the text book for
interview purposes, so that is what he assumes everyone should know.

In practice, people often do have to look up little things, unless it
is something they use often.  Use something often enough, and it
becomes trivial to you.  Use it less often, and your brain moves it
back to the category of "I can just look that up."  This part is less
anecdotal, since I do program as a hobby when I am able.  :-)  Things
I am always using come to mind quickly.  That is why a persons code
starts to pick up a kind of finger print, is because we will tend to
use the methods that we know well first. :-)