jr conlin's ink stained banana

Oh, sure Batman is out.

i'm sure it's a nice movie.

But this disappears in less than 48 hours.

(Heavens, look at my wrist. i must get going.)

Mookie talked about various coding questions one asks in an interview. i've never really been a fan of those (both as interviewer and interviewee) for a number of reasons. Granted, i hate Puzzler type questions (like the Prisoner's Dilemma) more, mostly because guys like me come up with reasons it wouldn't work. (By the time prisoner #37 enters the room after spending 99 days in isolation, what's the likelihood that he'll remember the position of the light switch variant to the way that he found it? Suffice to say: slim. i'd just ask folks to draw blood in some manner (e.g. chew on a finger) and write their number on the wall. Simple to remember, easy to effect, and aside from some blood loss and possible infection, no matter what day 37 shows up, he'll know what to do.)

So since these sorts of questions are there to test your coding prowess, why hasn't anyone created a module in CPAN that solves these? Honestly, the fact that someone knew there was a package in CPAN that did that as well as how to use it, means that she's smart enough not to try and reinvent a wheel.

And, obviously, probably ought to create a python, java and a few other like libraries for when the interviewer decides that you can't use Perl anymore.