Brainbench perl test?

[Abigail]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 12:25:57PM -0400, Uri Guttman wrote:
> On 09/04/2012 08:03 AM, Mr I wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I've literally had people who were "Senior" programmers (whatever that
>>> means) who, when given the instructions "Given that fib(n) is equal to
>>> fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) write a fib function in any language" didn't even
>>> get to the
>>>
>>>    sub fib {
>>>      my $n = shift;
>>>      return fib($n-1)+fib($n-2);
>>>    }
>>>
>
>>>
>> IMHO this is a typical example of an awful question!
>>
>> It requires additional knowledge of the problem domain NOT asked by the
>> interviewer.Your assumption is that the candidiate knows:
>>
>> a) the fibonacci sequence
>> b) mathematically how to calculate (included recurrence)
>>
>
> why do they need to know it? they are given the formula!!
>
> and they can do a linear version if they don't know recursion.
>
> and knowing recursion is a good coding test to filter out the wannabes  
> from the serious coders.


No. Well, it filters out the wannabees. It doesn't recognize the serious
coder. If, given the Fibonacci sequence, or a similar recursive formula,
and your first instinct is to solve it with recursion or iteration, you
aren't serious.

Your first instinct should be "Is there a generating function I can use?".



Abigail