Another Good (Java) Interview Question

Great idea. Inspired three different thoughts:

Personally, my number 1 book is Kent Beck’s “Extreme Programming Explained”. It is logically consistent which is too often not common in software development literature.

Second, how about this question: “What books don’t you like?”. I think the ability to intelligently criticize software-related writing is a highly desired virtue.

Finally, here’s another question along these lines: “What blogs do you follow?”

“Second, how about this question: “What books don’t you like?”. I think the ability to intelligently criticize software-related writing is a highly desired virtue.”

Good idea. I’ll steal that one :-)

Oh this one is a real great find. Here are my two cent…

I can only tell that
a) I learnt programming from newsletters, blogs, white papers, best practise sites
d) Even if I read a book, I tend to forget author and title. Might be because I have a very bad memory for abstract titles (for movie titles, blog titles, song titles AND book titles), but remember names quite well
c) I didn’t own any book about programming coming from university

Though I even in those times I was a better developer when I started to work than many of my fellow students.

I’m just thinking that this sort of questions ignores that people actually learn differently. I love books and I actually buy Computer Science books nowadays. But my main source of information remains abstracts, excerpts, newsletters, blogs, home pages etc.

What do you ask younger people like me? :-)

Stefan

@Stefan: Nevertheless, I would hire you instantly although you don’t own programming books ;-)

Yes, I guess mentioning blogs, whitepapers etc is equally good than reading books.

That makes me feel more comfortable.

Nevertheless your point (to make a contribution here) – I think – is, to find out how people reflect on information and knowledge regarding their profession.

Perhaps two good starter questions would be:
– How did you keep yourself up-to-date in terms of skills and knowledge the last two years?
– Following: What books / web-sites / blogs / newsletters can (or can’t) you recommend then and why?

Thanks for the interesting thought!

@Stefan: I’ll steal your recruiting question ideas too, very interesting.

We’ve been asking candidates for several years now what programming blogs and regular on-line resources the candidates have found useful or interesting.

While the answers have varied pretty widely I believe in every instance where they haven’t come up wth *anything* they’ve been rejected, although not necessarily solely on those grounds.

Another one I’ve used for a long time is “What’s your language of the year?” If they have *no* idea what I’m talking about I’m immediately suspicious. Again, I don’t expect everybody to *have* a language of the year, but their response is usually pretty informative.

Very good list, although I think you are missing a little technical ballast too: Effective Java SE, Java Concurrency in practice and Java Generics and Collections.

If you want to add another book as a “must read” to your list, consider
Michael Feathers “Working Effectively With Legacy Code”
This book might be the natural sequel to “Refactoring”.

Personally, i made the experience that judging knowledge by read books is often misleading. It’s more about applying the knowledge than having read the book. Reading is a start, though.

I would add the question “what open source projects do you contribute to?” to the interview. You get a code or communication sample for free when answered positively.

@Daniel: Oh I forgot, yeas an excellent book – there are far to few books about legacy code.

“I would add the question “what open source projects do you contribute to?” to the interview.”

From my experience there are – at least in Germany – not many developers contributing to open source projects.

@Stefan: That’s why the question is so important in my opinion. :-)

Among many books that I have read, I would recommend the following very highly on “practical OO, patterns, best practices and anti-patterns”:

1. Holub on Patterns – Probably the best treatment on practical & good OO and design patterns

2. Bitter Java by Bruce Tate – Amazing treatment on anti-patterns

An absolute must-read is Michael Nygard’s “Release It!”. Just about the best and most practical IT book I’ve read in the last few years.

Wanted to read that book for quite some time, your post made me order one at Amazon. Thanks.

Which blogs would you recommend ?