> It would be like an accountant not knowing what the number 4 is.
It's a hypothetical no-go! Every person, even the fourth grader knows the number 4. So why ask a question that measures their ability to remember 4, say 4 or show that they know 4.
> I don't see how a programmer could be remotely competent without having been exposed…
Invest in people and people will invest back in your business. Interview process that I follow at my workplace has just one goal to assess: whether or not it'd be great to work with this person and spend over ~50 hours per week with them.
Absolutely! This is super super important. Fun to work with, not annoying to waste time with.
> know nothing about computers
It's sad that you think this way of people who couldn't answer your questions at the expected level.
> Or are there actually more criteria than you let on here?
Yes! One way to know if they're any good or not suitable is by giving them a problem statement like so:
'Design X, feel free to choose a language that's suitable for this problem', and then may be proceed to hint with: 'You might want to look at advantages of Static versus dynamic typing'… and then let them ask whatever questions they want to ask or read up or search or start implementing whatever.
Observe what they do -- and how fast can they get to the decision of what language and why. And how to make X (break down of steps) or if they can dive and start making X there itself. Note, if they had theoretical knowledge of what you seek during an interview it will work to their advantage naturally. Or sometimes not.
Of course, this process may not work for you as it does for us -- therefore seeking direct answers about static vs dynamic language may not be such a bad question after all (I get it), but expecting people to accurately remember what an http request or its response looks like may not be fruitful at all. It can throw good people off guard and ruin the rest of the interview for them.
Well, following Netflix's mantra - it is a team and not family that you are hiring for. Anyone can Google and find answers, doesn't mean you would hire everyone, would it?
There are a number of basic items that a competent programmer needs to know off the top of his head. If they had to google for every single item, then their productivity goes down the drain and so does the entire team's productivity. You should fix your hiring.
It's a hypothetical no-go! Every person, even the fourth grader knows the number 4. So why ask a question that measures their ability to remember 4, say 4 or show that they know 4.
> I don't see how a programmer could be remotely competent without having been exposed…
Share this link with them:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1517582/what-is-the-diffe...
Invest in people and people will invest back in your business. Interview process that I follow at my workplace has just one goal to assess: whether or not it'd be great to work with this person and spend over ~50 hours per week with them.