The Question of Questions

After the digression of my last post, which really was not technically based, I was going to get back to the really juicy stuff.  Instead, I will only partially back to the good stuff.

I was reading a CNN article on Marissa Mayer, the Google-ite Engineer turned Yahoo CEO.  In the article, which outlines 11 facts about her, #6 in the list caught my eye.  It says that in her original job interview, which was conducted at one point by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google's co-founders, they asked her the following question:

"How would you write a spell-check program when you have a vocabulary so big it won't fit in a computer?"

I have to say that that is one heck of an interview question.  One that you cannot really prepare for.  They were more than likely simply seeking her quick insight of the issue to see how she would approach it, but none the less its an amazingly specific question that would knock a lot of people on their butts, I am sure.

I have seen questions from people on some of these coding forums, asking for lists of interview questions that they can study for their upcoming interview.  Every time that I see one of those questions I want to tell them to pick up the book nearest to them that covers the language in question and to study that in its entirety.

The possibility of questions in an interview is astounding and one could not even hope to study the exact questions that would be asked in a given interview.  My point is that all you can do is study and code and do your best when you get to the interview.  Its all you'll really be able to do to prepare.

I, unfortunately, don't interview very well as I tend to freeze up mentally.  Sure, I know how to code, but I am usually so insanely nervous in an interview that to ask me to code or think about technical problems more than likely comes across disappointing.

Ok, enough embarrassing myself and boring you with useless details.