Re: What makes a good C/C++ programmer?

From: Gianni Mariani (gi2nospam_at_mariani.ws)
Date: 01/24/05 

Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:12:27 -0800

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:
> Gianni Mariani wrote:
...
>
>
> After removing superfluous semicolons after namespace definitions,
>
> austria-0.8/job> g++ -Wall -Wno-long-long -ansi -pedantic \
> -I../src/austria/code -L../src/austria/code/work.gx86 \
> -o main main.cc -laustria
> austria-0.8/job> ./main
> M::Do(void)
>
> it compiles and runs without complaint.
> You need to explain an "Austria C++ smart pointer".
> An astute candidate would *not* assume that it has the usual meaning.
> But, if it has the usual meaning
> and the candidate is familiar with smart pointers,
> then you should expect the candidate to spot the error immediately.

Yep. This is a design issue. This should be somthing that someone with
experience should pick up.

>
> I would say this *is* a good question
> because the programmer cannot depend upon the compiler or testing
> to reveal the bug. Of course,
> we would expect that this bug would manifest itself eventually.
>
> Evidently, smart pointers are important to you
> and you should make sure that your programmers understand them.
> But smart pointers are *not* a difficult concept to grasp
> so any deficiency in understanding them is easily corrected
> and I don't think that this question would do very much
> to help you decide which candidate is the better C++ programmer.

You're right. Smart pointers are somthing that could be picked up
quickly. The point is that the questions were pre-interview, the "take
as long as you like to answer them" type and so if someone decided to,
they could find out with about 5 minutes of google and reading (if not
less).

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