Little robot (I)

While applying to a position a few days ago, I received an assignment trying to test my coding style.

IMO, assignments are quite a good way to get a peek on the coding style of someone. They are easy programming tasks that show if somebody is able to code (it seems many of us can’t), and what’s his/her style.

Another similar tool would be online testing web applications such as codility. My opinion of codility is mixed. I think it’s a good way to test, but some of the assignments are already on the Internet, and doing a bit of research you can find some of them. Besides, focusing on a fixed time frame (one hour), it’s more prone to errors on the assignee.

Anyway, no method is perfect, and I’ve discovered the assignment I was given was already solved on the Internet. For the record, with due respect, I think googled solution is overkill. But you can see there the specific assignment.

When I received the test, first thing I thought was about the programming language. I was allowed to code in any language, but the position I had applied was Ruby based. I was more comfortable doing it in Java, but wanted to do it in Ruby. What if I wasn’t able to do it right in Ruby? Better to do it right first, and then to try to show the point I am at in Ruby.

So I did it both in Java and in Ruby.



First published here