The man hours spent screening a single applicant can quickly balloon over 8 man hours. My current client recently felt this pain and decided to require the consulting houses to have their candidates fill out a questionnaire. In an environment with many different technologies and developer background experiences coming up with a questionnaire that covers technical, theoretical as well as passion is a daunting task.

Below is one of the recent questionnaires I filled out that I thought balanced technical and theoretical questions well. Some of the details have been redacted. And oh’ Be warned, I have no idea if these answers are correct

What is reflection?
reflection is a way you can interrogate (inspect and/or invoke) objects in a running application.

How do you inherit from a class in C#? (give a code sample)
public class GreatClass:Baseclass {}

When you inherit a protected class-level variable, who is it available to?
The derived class and of course the base class.

Describe each accessibility modifier (public, private, etc).
Public: can be accessed by anyone
Private: can only be accessed from inside the base class
Protected: can be accessed by derived and base class
Internal: like public by also must be in the same assembly
Protected Internal: like private by also must be in the same assembly

How is method overriding different from overloading?
overriding changes the functionality of a base method, overloading creates another method with different inputs/attributes (post in MVC)

What does the keyword virtual mean in the method definition?
virtual methods are methods that the derived class must override.

How can you overload a method?
By changing the type or number of parameters.

What’s the difference between an interface and abstract class?
An abstract class is something that I don’t often use. Really; C# does not support multiple inheritance so we often use interfaces to define our entities and hierarchies. In c# we can inherit from one abstract class and implement multiple interfaces.

What is the default accessibility for a class?
Private

Can you implement multiple interfaces?
Yes

What is a delegate?
The C# version of AddressOf

Code a short and simple delegate example. Code the same sample with a lambda expression.

   1:  public delegate int myCalc(int x, int y);

   2:   

   3:  public class doMath {

   4:      public string Add(int x, int y){ Console.Wr...etc }

   5:      public string Sub(int x, int y){ Console.Wr...etc }

   6:  } 

   7:   

   8:  public static void Main(){

   9:      myCalc adder = new myCalc(doMath.Add);

  10:      adder(1,1);

  11:  } 

  12:   

  13:  public static void Main(){

  14:      myCalc adder = (doMath.Add);

  15:      adder(1,1);

  16:  } 

  17:   

  18:   

Strings are immutable, what does this mean?

The contents will not change once created, methods like toLower will not effect the string, only the output.

Code an enumeration for a status where options are: Queued, In Process, Finished

enum Status { Queued, In Process, Finished };

Can C# have multiple catch blocks?

Sure

What are design patterns?

Examples of how people smarter then me make my job easier.

Describe two design patterns you have used in a project.

Singleton! – Really; it’s was a good use…for a WCF Service to cache database results and serve those results to all web clients.

I’m not sure if MVC counts but It what I miss right now…MVVM is fine for large SL projects and the Flex stuff I am doing…well…as some of the Headspring guys on twitter might now, I’m not happy with it.

What are the most important aspects of an effective software development team?

Communication, planning, direction, understanding the problem domain (++DDD)

What is your experience with test-driven development? What are its limitations? What are its strengths?

I’m a fan and I use it where I’ve been able to convince a project manager that it fits into a project plan. When I have to take over a project without unit tests I feel lost. TDD, like design patterns, are something I love that makes my job easier.

What is your experience with Extreme Programming? What are its limitations? What are its strengths?

Not enough; the last 3 years I’ve been stuck in a big-design-up-front, not even waterfall, we spent a year on documents. 5 people, 1 year. sick. I was in a XP environment in 2001-2003.

Will this code compile? What will be its output?

Sample code was provided.

Write the PRECISE output of this code as it would appear in the console.

Sample code was provided

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Here is my post PC rebuild task list.

1. Install
   1. Windows Live Writer (& msn messenger) so I can blog about it…im a dork.
   2. Firefox
2. Outlook setup, painless.
3. Uninstall:
1. Windows Mobile 5 SDK R1 – Not developing for mobile.
2. Windows Mobile 5 SDK R2 – Not developing for mobile.
3. Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2 – Not developing for mobile.
4. Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 3.5 – Not developing for mobile.
5. Microsoft Device Emulator Version 3.0 – Not developing for mobile.
6. Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.5 Design Tools – Not developing for mobile.
7. Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.5 – Not developing for mobile.
8. Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.5 for Devices – Not developing for mobile.
9. Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard 1.2 – Don’t have access to DB Servers per client standard.
4. Reopen the ticket to ask for the tech’s to install IIS (or provide me with a copy of i386). They did both!
5. Install (Using the Web Platform Installer):
1. ASP.NET MVC 1.0
2. .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
6. Install
1. Visual Studio 3.5 SP1
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP3
3. Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express

Now the workstation is how I would have expected it. From here I can spend the rest of the day installing all this software

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1. Visual Studio 2008 w/ SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
2. SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools
3. TweetDeck
4. 7-Zip
5. Notepad++
6. LINQPad
7. Songbird
8. ReSharper
9. Chrome
10. Firefox
11. Firefox Addon – Web Developer
12. Firefox Addon – Firebug
13. Firefox Addon – YSlow
14. Firefox Addon – FireCookie
15. Firefox Addon – MeasureIt
16. Firefox Addon – ColorZilla
17. Firefox Addon – Delicious
18. FeedReader
19. SourceMonitor
20. SnagIt
21. Visio (I assume word, etc is already installed)
22. Windows Live Writer
23. ITunes
24. FxCop
25. Tortoise Svn
26. FileBox Extender

Update, forgotten tools:

• .NET Reflector
• Dropbox
• Web Platform Installer to install all the development tools. Ideally, on a VM…

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In the past, when building small web applications with up to a couple concurrent users, I’ve placed the database on the same system as the web server. Blasphemy!!!…not really. You see, knowing that database systems will entirely consume their allocated memory allows for clear capacity planning.

There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when designing an architecture and for the sake of this post lets just say that:

• This system does not require a ridiculous amount of memory
• This system does not require HA

And really, while every project sponsor will tell you that their project requires the most powerful server ever built and for the sake of humanity can never go offline again, most web applications don’t require all that much memory…and the fate of the company is not dependant on 100% uptime…just check the SLA.

So what does this all have to do with “Content Segregation”? Oh, and WTF is “Content Segregation”?

Ok, ok, just one more paragraph to provide context.

Large web applications with high concurrent user counts will commonly separate not only content types across systems but also application modules. For example, there might be a small web server cluster for images or a separate group of servers for the account management modules (login, register, profile). These practices are commonly accepted and I couldn’t agree with them more. Its just that most of the applications I am involved with don’t require this type of advanced architecture even though the project sponsor would have you believe otherwise. These, not the large web applications, are those we need to discuss..

So what does this all have to do with “Content Segregation”? Oh, and WTF is “Content Segregation”?

Until recently performance and availably have been the only reasons I’ve recognized to separate content across physical servers. That is until just very recently, in a meeting of the minds it was stated, as fact, that “Items of content type X are data and should be stored on the database server”

WTF? Let me clarify, not IN the database, but on the database server file system..

Ok, I have my head around what you are saying, I understand that your an advocate of Content Segregation, I just don’t understand why, but I can tell you why not.

1. Performance

Database servers are commonly separate physical systems for performance reasons. The DB server should not be a dumping ground of user generated content. It might seem silly but there is a chance that you might really use the SQL server for something that requires its full power. Maybe some form of analytics and when that happens you need to have the available power.

2. Slippery Slope

I truly hate this argument but it fits so perfect into this context. Its not so far of a leap to go from storing images on the database file system to storing images in the database.

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LINQ requires all tables that you work with to have a PK. If you don’t have a PK on a table you can use the designer to set a PK on the generated code. This won’t effect your database.

• In Visual Studio open the LINQ Designer.
• Select a row you would like as your PK and select properties.
• Update the “Primary Key” Property.

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