I don't know about you guys, but that checklist of skills and the
possibility of getting that on an interview make me depressed.
Of that list, I'm pretty sure I can do it all, but most of that are not
something I do all the time every day so I may have the gist of it, but
not know the syntax down to its every comma. I personally use the
reference *and* the internet every tie when writing code - for example,
I never use cue points, and while I know perfectly well how it works,
I'd have to see how the event works and do a few tests before applying
it to my code. Nothing huge that takes day of research, but still.
That's I think just shooting a lot of questions to the interviewee may
help filter out the crap but also won't help you find the best
candidates; I honestly think good developers, specially in the Flash
world, are the ones who can quickly find the answer to a new question
before having to ask around, be it by using the reference, be using by
using the internet, or by testing. Remember this technology changes at a
fast pace. Having a catalog of techniques in your mind may show
experience, but there'll be gaping holes if the guy's work was focused
somewhere else or if he's not very formally trained.
Personally, on an interview, I'd ask to see the candidate's previous
work that's online (doing so next to him). Ask him what kind of
techniques were in place on that particular website, question him about
interface elements. Give hints on how you'd do something he has done and
see his reaction, whether he gets "into" it and start discussing code
with a peer or whether he shows he's full of shit. Ask how long that
particular work took, and whether someone helped him, and what external
classes or frameworks he used. Ask him what kind of work he liked the
most, and why. Which was the most difficult one he did recently, and
why. Ask what kind of work he doesn't like doing. Try to get a hang of
how he works, and try to understand what motivates and unmotivates him.
If possible, ask to see some real-life code he's produced, and then see
what kind of techniques he does apply on real code more than just
knowing the number of a dozen design patterns.
I don't know if you guys get too many interviewees or something that
warrants a list like that to make things faster. But for website
development in Flash, I think there's so much more that's necessary than
just schoolbook knowledge that focusing too much on the checklist really
seems counterproductive and sad to me.
Zeh
Sidney de Koning wrote:
The list of questions i always ask interviewees are the following, and
this gives me a pretty good example of what they are like and what their
skillset is.
Test is always accompanied with a practical test we make up on the spot.
The XML in Q16 is made up, you can create your own for this.
Feel free to use this,
Cheers,
Sid
1 - write an event listener (normal and weak referenced) and handling
function for a Sprite
named 'beginQuestions' and listen for a mouse click.
2 - what does weak referenced mean in regards to event listeners?
3 - what is the difference between an object an an array?
4 - how doe you get cue point from vidio in AS3? And in AS2?
5 - briefly explain the various datatypes for numbers.
6 - how do you load an external file?
7 - draw a 20px by 20px Rectangle using the graphics API.
8 - which of the following cannot contain other display objects?
Sprite, Shape, MovieClip, DisplayObjectContainer.
9 - which properties can you use to change the size of DisplayObjects?
10 - ENTER_FRAME is independant of an SWF's frame rate? True or false?
11 - XP is a type of which programming methology?
12 - why would you use a Singleton?
13 - what is the Document Class?
14 - create a new TextField instance, then add text it, then add some
more text.
15 - what is the difference between public, private and protected.
16 - look at the piece of XML (see other sheet). How do i:
- Get all of the page nodes as an XMLList.
- Get node in showcase where the attribute id=1.
17 - listen for when the 'enter key' is pressed and
trace out "all questions are now done" when the event happens.
Sidney de Koning
Flash / AIR Developer @ www.funky-monkey.nl
Technical Writer @ www.insideria.com
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