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Is Your Computer Science is Rusty?

Mark Mzyk | February 10, 2008

Or perhaps even worse – it’s non-existent.

A while back I found a link to one of Steve Yegge’s older blog posts, from his blog before his current blog, circa 2004. I finally got around to reading it. It is his list of must ask interview questions. After reading it, I’m certain everything he says is still relevant today. All the topics he mentions are things any programmer should know.

And now, I’ll publicly embarrass myself in the grand tradition of Monty Python. I’m not sure I would pass Steve’s interview.

I’ve heard of everything he mentions. I even remember studying all of it at one point during my time at NC State, so I can’t fault the university for not teaching it to me. I likely would give bungled answers to Steve’s questions, showing that maybe I have some idea what I am doing, but not inspiring confidence.

It’s time I internalized the answers. I can look everything up easily enough, but it isn’t until I use it or write it down that I’m going to truly lean it. So with that in mind, I’m going to start a series of blog posts where I’m going to go through Steve’s post, section by section, finding the answers to every bit of knowledge he says I should know.

I’m going to call the series Foundational Definitions. Look for post one in the very near future.