It will only work if you want to hire know-it-alls.

If someone tells me "write a bubblesort" in a test, I assume they know what a bubblesort is and have reason to ask for it. I (correctly, you will have to admit, since that was the whole point of your "excercise") assume that they know its drawbacks. It is not unreasonable to conclude that bubblesort is being used as an example for a simple but non-trivial algorithm. There are a several minor design choices to make when implementing it, some (slightly) consequential, some not. The interviewer might be planning to inquire about my particular judgement calls.

If I were an interviewer who had this kind of thing in mind and you revolted at hearing "bubblesort", I'd likely deduct points for missing the big picture and/or dismissing the idea that you might not have all the facts to know the reason for my request.

That's what I meant when I said that you have to be very careful with the wording: you must avoid giving the impression that you had other things on your mind than just getting a bunch of scalars sorted as easily as possible.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^4: How to measure Perl skills? by Aristotle
in thread How to measure Perl skills? by optimist

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