Yeah, sorry - I didn't mean to sidetrack this into a discussion of web frameworks.

The idea is that you would have many of these kinds of questions, covering many niches (web, testing, refactoring, system administration, bioinformatics, etc., etc., etc.).

The candidate's answers would act like a profile of his or her development practices and preferences.

A testing question might look like: What do you do to test your programs to ensure the quality of your releases?

• I do XP all the way: unit testing, pair programming, constant refactoring, user stories
• I write programs; I make sure they work. No problem!
• Test first; ask questions later.
• I write embedded tests with Test::Inline, Pod::Tests, etc.
• We document the test cases and make a pre-launch checklist that we go through by hand before each release so that we catch regressions
• I stay up all night if I have to to make sure everything works. It's important to get it right the first time.
• I write automated tests with Test::More and friends
• I do a careful code review of everything I write.
• Other ______________ (please explain)

At the very least, you get something to talk about during the interview. "Ah I see you practice "Test First programming". How's that working out for you?"

Michael