code quality

[Henry Spencer]

> Ideally, I would like interviewees to be asked to code some small and simple
> function to a given spec. at the interview.

Actually, utzoo has occasionally done this, as a follow-on to an interview.
(We haven't done it much because we don't do much hiring, and when we do
hire, the hiree usually isn't a total stranger.)  Our standard test case
was a program to turn Unix text (tabs, backspaces, newlines) into fixed-
length records with ANSI carriage control.  (We used to have a practical
application for this, driving a Xerox 9700 laser printer.)  It's substantial
enough to be a good test of ability, and small enough that you can ask
someone to do it without first promising to hire him.  It worked well:
one applicant who talked well got rejected quickly as hopeless, while
Geoff Collyer came up with a neater piece of code than the one we were
using in production.  (Geoff isn't utzoo!geoff because the spot we had
open was for an applications programmer, and somebody else offered him a
systems-programming job at about the same time.)
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry