[bluGill]

No, it would not be a perfect answer, and could work against you: it shows you are not willing to work with me and assume some intelligence on my part (until proven otherwise) and thus you are potentially not going to work well with the rest of the team. I would respond that we have already profiled this code and discovered it is a bottleneck, now answer the question. It won't be hard to overcome the negative impression, but it left a negative that you don't want.

Now if you responded in the form "Of course in the real world we don't look at code until after a profiler shows the need. I see X which is suspicious, let me look deeper". In this case the comment is perfect: it shows you trust, but know to verify that trust. It also has the side effect of giving you time to think.

[mmcnl]

I fail to see why analyzing a problem before solving it somehow translates into "not going to work well with the team". Problem analysis skills are far more valuable than problem solving skills. Anyone can search on Google for a solution to a given problem, but no one on Google can tell you what the actual problem is. If you really thing the answer I was responding to is not acceptable, then the question is a lousy question imho.

"It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." - S. Jobs

[bluGill]

Remember, this is an interview situation, I can't give you a realistic 500000 line program with a slow hot spot and ask you to fix: we only have a few minutes (maybe an hour). I have simplified the problem to a single function that is a bottleneck, I want you to analyze this function so I can see how well you can analyze things.

Refusing to do something because it hasn't been profiled is not analysis, it is refusing to do analysis. You have been given a problem and been asked to analyze it. That refusal makes you not a team player.

Once again, this is an interview. Noting that this scenario (a single function that is known to be too slow for reasons that can be fixed in 10 minutes) never happens in the real world is good - it shows you understand that real world analysis includes elements not included here. Stating you won't do this because you don't have profile data is not being a team player.

[mmcnl]

I understand what you're saying, but I still fail to see how all of this translates into not being a team player. That really has nothing to do with this at all. If the interviewer still wants a solution based on the facts as they lay on the table, he can always ask again. The first is answer is still the best answer in my opinion, because it is much closer to a real-world situation and it shows a deeper contextual understanding of situation. It also implies experience.

Anyone can repeat someone on StackOverflow who says that function X really is faster than function Y. That's hardly an accomplishment. It's like asking someone to perform a basic non-trivial calculation out of his head -- why bother?

[SilasX]

That's the problem -- you're smuggling in non-obvious, hidden assumptions about the framing of the interview[1] and then penalizing someone who doesn't share them, without giving them the chance to isolate what those assumptions were and why they should use those in this context.

So they're getting rejected for a reason other than technical skill.

[1] "Okay, we're going to talk like I've already fixed problems A, B, and C, but not X, Y, and Z, because we obviously don't have time for a full interaction that is open-ended enough to allow for all of those to be an issue, and you're being judged on how quickly you focus on and solve the X/Y/Z."

[DoofusOfDeath]

I think you misconstrued the intent of my original post. I was merely trying to point out that the interview question was (in my experience) based on a very questionable premise.

I wasn't saying anything about how one ought to handle such a situation during an interview.

I totally agree that a response akin to "Your question makes wrong assumptions. Let's move on to the next question." would be completely inappropriate for an interview, or if the same issue arose in a normal work situation.

[dando]

>No, it would not be a perfect answer, and could work against you: it shows you are not willing to work with me and assume some intelligence on my part (until proven otherwise) and thus you are potentially not going to work well with the rest of the team

I don't know how what was said implies this in anyway.

This is one of the biggest problems with interviews. Every interviewer has some dorky idea that x means y is a terrible developer while another interviewer thinks x means y is a great developer.

"I want an opportunity to learn" - Oh great. We want someone whose interested in learning more and isn't cocky.

"I want an opportunity to learn" - Oh no, that just tells me you don't know much and aren't interested in contributing