April 2007
Beginner
257 pages
7h 18m
English
book
Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, Second Edition
by John Mongan, Noah Suojanen, Eric Giguère
Content preview from Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, Second Edition
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12.3. Summary
You'll probably encounter a brainteaser or two during the interview process, even if they're not directly related to your programming skills. Many interviewers use these kinds of problems to see your thought processes at work and determine how well you can think "outside the box."
Brainteasers come in many different forms, but the obvious answer is almost invariably wrong in all cases. Start by verifying your assumptions to make sure you're solving the right problem. Don't be intimidated by the problem — break it into pieces, simplify the problem, and solve specific cases in order to find the general solution. Beware of simple problems, as they're trickier than they seem. If you don't have all the facts you need, make reasonable estimates based on prior knowledge and common sense.
No matter what you're doing, think out loud and explain to the interviewer what you're doing and the reasoning behind your decisions. Focus on the problem and keep working; it's your thought processes that count the most here, not the answer itself.
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.