The first part of my most recent interview was pretty cool:

• "Hey, Matt, do you know awk?"
• "Nope, but I know a bit of Perl...."
• "Good. Here's an editor, gawk, two awk references, seven problems, and ninety minutes. Get as far as you can."

I ended up learning regexes the hard way, in those 90 minutes. The process seems to work with people other than me, too; we don't have anyone in the computing group here who doesn't pull their weight. I'm quite a fan of the "practical" interview, now.

Update: I was recently (Aug. 2002) reminded that we got 60 minutes, not 90....

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:wq