On Nov 12, 2007, at 7:42 PM, Vitaliy wrote: > Peter P wrote: >> This is a self explaining dialogue fragment that took place some >> time ago >> on an >> IRC channel: >> >> I was at a job interview on Thurs where the guy told me I >> couldn't do >> a=(*.txt) to build an array (a) of filenames (*.txt) (in BASH). >> <_abc_> Were you the interviwer or the victim ? >> victim >> I guess we mutually don't want to work together ... >> he told me I /need/ to use the ls command >> <_abc_> Did you offer him to swap places after trying it out ? >> >> No comment. > > Peter, it's not as self-explanatory as may appear. :) What, in your > opinion, > is the moral of the story? > > Hopefully it is "one needs to keep an open mind about what > constitutes a > correct answer", rather than "empoyment tests are useless". Okay: "Employment tests written by someone without the skills of a 10 year old, are useless?" :-) Anyone interviewing someone for a Unix job -- apparently what the above is -- who said that using an array in the shell directly versus using a bunch of pipes and an ls command, is a) behind in their skillset, and b) closed-minded. On the flip side, anyone who stubbornly wouldn't try to do the job the way the new boss wanted it done during the interview process, no matter how backwards/stupid it was, is also stupid -- in a different way. Being "elitist" to the point of not getting the job, is pretty silly unless the ae88925 person has plenty of job offers on the table. Can't really tell the whole story from the snippet of discussion without more context. The above discussion could be dissected in a number of ways. And even then, the real issue may have been a personality clash between the interviewer and interviewee. You can't tell. -- Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist