SPUG: PERL technical interview

[Randy Rue]

Great question, and of course the short answer is "It depends."

Years before I ever heard the project management term "triple 
constraint" a contractor friend of mine (contractor like hammer and 
nails and a white pickup truck, not like dev-for-hire) asked me if I 
wanted the job done "fast, cheap, or right, pick any two." I've never 
heard the concept explained better since.

So the answer to "which comes first" depends on the situation and the 
priorities of the consumer. Is this app a heavy resource user? Tune it. 
Is it expected to be in use for a long time and maintained by baboons? 
Make it correct, avoid cryptic shortcuts, and comment the bejeezus out 
of it. Are we all fired if it's not running by noon? Fix it now!

Assuming no constraints? Make it correct, even if it means getting not 
it working as quickly. Get it working. Then see about tuning it.

My unsolicited $0.02.

Randy Rue



Fred Morris wrote:
  > The interview question I haven't been asked lately...
> 
> Which comes first:
> 
> * optimization
> * correctness
> * working code
> 
> 
> At 11:04 PM 1/21/06, Creede Lambard wrote:
> 
>>Come up with a good way to reverse a string. I get asked that about two out
>>of three interviews, it seems like. Oh, and no one seems to like
>>
>> print join ('', reverse( split (//, $string)));
>>
>>which seems unfair to me. I mean, if they're going to expect me to use Perl,
>>I should be able to use Perl, not use Perl in a particular way they mandate
>>(they seem to always want something that uses substr). [...]
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Fred Morris
> 
> 
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