Hot Diggety! Esther Filderman was rumored to have written:
>
> I threw the book across the room at least a dozen times. Their idea
> of questions is along the lines of "Name 6 flags to the command 'ls'"
> or "Which flag to 'mount' do you use if you want to attach a disk in
> FOOBAR format".
karma +1
That's the kind of exam I'd miserably fail at, because the way mind
works, I remember roughly *where* to look for something, but not the
precise options. Pointers rather than stored data.
It's not helped by the fact that I've worked on so many platforms. So
after a while, even on similar platforms (compounded by different major
OS versions), precise command args starts to become a little hazy.
I'm safer not memorizing most arguments -- avoiding the risk of thinking
I knew the right args (or the specific quirks) and spectacularly
bungling a command with potentially disastrous results. History is
littered with the carcasses of brave souls who *thought* they knew the
exact right arguments without looking it up.
I know where and how to find precise answers in a jiffy if the need
arises -- run the command w/out arguments, with -h, man <command>, GOOG
search, checking my scribbled e-notes, vendor PDF documentation, search
of my lopsa-* mbox, amongst other resources.
Those who conducts interviews or provides exams with a heavy emphasis on
this kind of approach automatically earns:
* eternal enmity
* world's dirtiest look imaginable
* karma rating reduction of 10 points
I generally think it's more useful to see the thought processes of a
candidate rather than test their rote memorization skills. Anyone can
memorize and regurgitate information, but the good candidate will be
able to apply their own experience/intelligence/reasoning/search skills
towards new or unique situations -- memorized information or not -- and
work their way out of it.
-Dan
P.S. Those with eidetic memory are lucky, though. ;-)
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