Bonkers

[Nigel Rantor]

Nick Cleaton wrote:
> 
> When I'm the interviewer, I'm always tempted to take the
> questions as far as I can, so I'd be asking the candidate for
> a way to make that code run a little bit faster, and giving
> hints if they don't know.  Even if the job is unlikely to
> revolve around speed critical C coding.
>  
> Sometimes I think this is a mistake, because some candidates
> can get frustrated when asked stuff that they don't know, and
> start to get annoyed if they think the question is irrelevant
> or too artificial.
> 
> I suppose being evaluated on technical ability can be quite
> emotionally charged, for someone who takes pride in it.

I often do the same as long as they seem up for it, and I often preface 
with something like:

"ooh, okay, that's interesting, for *bonus* points could you make it a 
bit quicker/smaller?"

   n