[Coco] Preparing for a job which requires knowledge of C

[Mark McDougall]

Tony C wrote:

> So earlier this week during a phone screen, I was asked 5 questions about
>  C++ which I couldn't answer. I tried to direct the interviewer to the
> fact that I hadn't used the language in 6 years, and could probably pick
> up the things I need to know relatively quickly.

As someone who has interviewed programmers for (embedded) programming 
positions, I can tell you that it's *extremely* difficult to assess 'coding 
skill' under interview conditions.

I've come to the conclusion that the absolute best you can hope to assess is 
whether or not the applicant can answer your questions!

I'm still amazed at the generally low level of competence out there - 
although to be fair it may be that, as a small company, we don't attract the 
'guns'?!? At times we worry that our questions are too hard, or unfair. In 
the last 7 years we've only had 1 applicant that breezed through all the 
questions in a few minutes - and thankfully he still works for us!

> I think asking these types of questions do not really assess one's 
> capabilities, and shouldn't be used exclusively to determine of a person
> is suitable for a position without giving them an opportunity to prove
> it. Many managers and engineers where I work also feel this way, and
> don't ask these types of questions.

I can see both sides of the argument. I think questions like this assess the 
applicant's experience rather than skill. There should only be a handful of 
indicative questions for each field - any more than that tends to ring alarm 
bells for me that the company culture is one of elitist w**kers who love to 
congratulate each other on how 'pretty' their company coding 
standards-conforming code is.

> What is the difference between main() in a C program, and main() in a C++
>  program?

My guess would be that, aside from the C startup code, main() in a C program 
is the first code executed. OTOH, all the global constructors are executed 
in a C++ program before main(), so you need to be careful what you assume.

Good luck with the job hunting!

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"