Re: Interview Question

In comp.databases.oracle.tools Johnny Barnes <jbarnes_at_aig.vialink.com> wrote:
: Bob Manieri wrote:
: >
: > Marc Baime wrote:
: > >
: > > >In article <3394E27F.241D_at_ntsource.com>, Frank Hubeny
: > > ><fhubeny_at_ntsource.com> writes
: > > >>I have been able to eliminate about 50% of the candidates that get
: > > >>past nontechnical screenings by simply asking them if they can do an
: > > >>"hello world" program in the language in which they claim to be expert.
: > =====================================================================
: Last summer I interviewed with a large airline firm for a dba position
: and the first technical question asked was - If you have 8 marbles all
: of the same size but one is heavier how can you find the heavy marble
: with a set of balance scales in just 2 weighings? The second question
: was - If you are in a boat on a lake with an object in the boat and you
: toss the object overboard will the lake water rise or fall? (They did
: ask a sql related question about how to join 2 tables to get an 'array
: like' output.
    

    About the object in the boat, the Q is not quite correct.     One can easily imagine an object made out of something     very light or very heavy, in which case I'd say that the     answer would be quite different. While the first Q is OK,     even though is has very little to do with DBA skills, the     2nd one would fit nicely in Scott Adam's next (4th?) book.

    And I'd bet if you did ask how heavy the object was, they     would take a look in their questionary and mumble something like     "Hmm... well, it doesn't say it here, let's move on, but     I would mark this one as "answered".

    Since the whole thread went kinda astray there was quite popular     sci-fi movie in the former Soveit Union where a few teens were     trapped by aliens during their intergallactic travel but were     able to escape by asking those very logical (by design) robots     a very simple yet confusing question, after which alien's heads     went on fire ( not a pretty scene for a PG-13 rated movie :)

    Rashid. Received on Sun Jun 15 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT