Comment by bdavisx
2 days ago
Here's an interesting thought on your "gotcha" - I'm 57 years old, been programming as a career for over 30 years, a lot of languages and I have no idea what the difference is.
2 days ago
Here's an interesting thought on your "gotcha" - I'm 57 years old, been programming as a career for over 30 years, a lot of languages and I have no idea what the difference is.
If I'm applying for a Java position and I claim to have Java experience on my resume, it's perfectly valid for them to ask me the difference between an int, an Integer, and a BigInteger.
But it's certainly not a universal question applicable to all programming languages.
Likewise, Clubber says in their post that their 'gotcha' question doesn't apply to most languages.
A function returns a value.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/721090/what-is-the-diffe...
> A function returns a value
... in Pascal/Delphi.
Yup, it was for a Delphi job in 1998.
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I have no idea either. I can easily look it up though. You can often tell an inexperienced interviewer from the extremely domain specific question they ask which _they_ are familiar with.
There are some absolutely ridiculous qs I've been asked like this and they've all had no followup question to illuminate why it would have been relevant 1. what version of java do you use? we used 8 at the time 2. what is the engine and version underneath your sql db?this was not for a dba role, just standard backend engineer 3. why did you use python instead of r for x project? this was about a gui automation script
>You can often tell an inexperienced interviewer from the extremely domain specific question they ask which _they_ are familiar with.
Lol a bit touchy aren't we?
Like I said, it's not really relevant in today's languages. It was for a Delphi/Pascal position. If you do any type of database code (like T-SQL), you would also know it. If your experience is mainly in C type languages, everything is a function so it doesn't apply.
If you hired a guy for a Delphi position who didn't know the difference between a function and a procedure, you hired the wrong guy.
Function or procedure is defined in every subroutine. It's a very basic question for Delphi, like what's the difference between an integer and a string.
> Our "gotcha," which doesn't apply to most languages anymore is, "What's the difference between a function and a procedure." It's a one sentence answer, but people who didn't know it would give some pretty enlightening answers.
If you're asking this question (by virtue of the present-tense "is") in the year 2025 even though by your own admission
> it's not really relevant in today's languages.
then you aren't giving candidates a good impression. Even though I would have nailed this question I would have serious reservations about any job that would ask it in an interview because it means that the person interviewing me has more concern for legacy minutiae than broad technical knowledge or problem-solving skills.
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>Lol a bit touchy aren't we?
No. I just looked up other responses to your post. It's obvious you got exposed as being inexperienced (or an idiot), while posing to know the definitive with your "gotcha". Being inexperienced (or ignorant) is not a problem, but being cocky is.
5 replies →
I think you are missing my point.
Words like functions/procedures tend to have different connotations across languages and once one crosses one's 15th language, and each having some 20 different keywords, it become difficult to remember what the exact connotation of a word is, in a specific language/framework. This is the most likely situation of the guy whose post I responded to.
The exception to the rule is, if you have been working quite a bit _recently_ on a specific language. You are presumably talking about this situation.
It’s ok to say that it’s never professionally mattered. No one has ever been paid to know that. “Are side effects a bad pattern?” Lotsa people have needed to know that on day one.