[kafkaesq]

But that's the whole point -- it's a corner case.

And hence, kind of silly to use as material to grill people on.

[eveningcoffee]

I do not think that these questions probe some corner cases. Rather these probe the general knowledge about the field.

Bubble sort question probes the understanding about the complexity theory, hopscotch hashing about concurrent algorithms and CAP theorem about problems with distributed databases.

Naturally when these questions are not open for discussion and instead only a short answer is expected then there is in my opinion something wrong with the interviewer or with the company.

You have to understand that the other side knowns in fact nothing about you and I find these questions to be quite fair to improve the situation.

[kafkaesq]

Bubble sort question probes the understanding about the complexity theory,

It's just that, again, you're picking a very marginal example to do that with.

And more fundamentally -- simply asking someone "What's the complexity of $foo"? doesn't tell you anything about whether they "understand" complexity. It only tells you whether they've adequately memorized that particular cell on their crib sheet.

As they are thoroughly incentivized to do, thanks to people employing interview techniques like these.

[eveningcoffee]

I definitely agree with you that shallow quizzes are not very informative and are alone not a good methodology for job interviews.

Naturally this question in isolation is not very informative and it is hard to differentiate if the answer to it comes from a more general understanding or is just memorized. It has to be supported with other questions and wider discussion.

What I want to say is that in a larger context this question is still not unfounded and it is hard for me to consider this or any other listed questions as a signalling a dominant status.