So that's why
Feb. 15th, 2004 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dtmOccasionally, my boss will interview people for a somewhat technical job. Often, these people will claim to be able to program, and she has a standard "bare minimum programming competency" question:
In the language of your choice, write a function that accepts a two-dimensional array of floating-point numbers and returns the smallest value in the array.
This should be something that can be done without any thought by anyone claiming to be a programmer, right? I'd never understood how people could come to an interview for a programming position, degree in hand, and fail this test. Now I understand. It's a bit reassuring to know that math departments aren't the only ones who have to deal with flagrantly unethical undergrads.
Update: it appears that this auction has been made private. Basically, it was a request for a full worked-out, ready-to-turn-in homework assignment. (Google even supplied me with the name of the course book the assignment was taken from and a little hunting with the exact page number)
In the language of your choice, write a function that accepts a two-dimensional array of floating-point numbers and returns the smallest value in the array.
This should be something that can be done without any thought by anyone claiming to be a programmer, right? I'd never understood how people could come to an interview for a programming position, degree in hand, and fail this test. Now I understand. It's a bit reassuring to know that math departments aren't the only ones who have to deal with flagrantly unethical undergrads.
Update: it appears that this auction has been made private. Basically, it was a request for a full worked-out, ready-to-turn-in homework assignment. (Google even supplied me with the name of the course book the assignment was taken from and a little hunting with the exact page number)