William "Chops" Westfield wrote:
> Interesting.  I find the last question ("Draw schematic for a
> one-stage AC amplifier with good temperature stability")
> out-of-place WRT the rest of the test; perhaps I've just
> been doing too much software and digital electronics

Agreed. I'll take it off.

> (Hmm.
> There weren't ANY digital questions on that test, were there?)

No, but you're right -- there should be. One thing I'm going to have there 
for sure, is designing a circuit from a truth table, and vice versa. Any 
other suggestions?

Keep in mind it cannot be very time consuming.

>> 3. Count all the bits that are on in a byte
>
> Hmm.  Would you expect clarity or clever algorithms?

IMO, it's irrelevant. This is a pass/fail test, to weed out those who can't 
do it at all.

>> 7. itoa (great, because they have to use a stack or strrev)
>
> Nonsense.  Many an itoa-like algorithm has been posted to piclist
> that uses neither.
>
> These aren't bad, but it's easy for me to imagine a microcontroller
> programmer that has never implemented a linked list, or a windows
> programmer that has never done their own string processing.

These aren't mine, they're Joel Spolsky's. :)  AFAIK, his company is not 
doing any embedded development.

Vitaliy 

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