Comments on: Ruby/Rails interview questions

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:23:34 +0000

Hi,
It really good effort to pass this article here its really helpful for me you can also find other info related to ruby at http://www.interviewmadeeasy.info/ruby

By: Joseph Wilk

Joseph Wilk — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:30:07 +0000

I would counter that, I think there is another valid answer to the question: Never! I think there are valid arguments for this. I do ask for examples after the question to backup the argument but you are right I could phrase the question better.

The last question is a bit silly but its interesting seeing peoples reactions to it. Really what I’m looking at is:
1. Preconceptions of the languages
2. Enough knowledge of each to express some traits.
3. Sense of humour

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:43:11 +0000

Question 4 is obviously “sometimes yes, sometimes no”. A better question would ask *when* it is a good idea.

I’d be pretty annoyed getting the last question on an interview.

By: Joseph Wilk

Joseph Wilk — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:34:18 +0000

I’m happy to give answers to any questions if anyone requests it. Though the comments from people above have shown some of the best and most entertaining answers are the ones I was not expecting

Regarding question 5:

The object_id method returns the identity of an object. Every object must have a unique id. Hence if two objects have the same object_id, they are the same object.

Ruby’s booleans and nil are objects, so they deserve to be treated like real objects just like the rest. So they too should have an object_id.

When allocating object ids we are restricted with what ids we can use as Fixnum uses the odd object_ids (well all those needed to reach the maximum Fixnum). It takes the odd ids as the least significant bit is always set to 1 to flag this as a Fixnum.

So starting at the sensible point of 0 this leaves us with the following order:

0 => False
1 => 0 (Fixnum)
2 => True
3 => 1 (Fixnum)
4 => Nil
5 => 2 (Fixnum)
6 => Undefined

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:25:29 +0000

You gonna provide any answers to these?

I’m particularly interested in the answer to question 5!

By: James Urquhart

James Urquhart — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:27:44 +0000

Interesting questions. Abstract and imaginative – just the way i like it.

My personal take on the airplane question is this.

If i am getting a chance to fly in this airplane, then that implies that i have already made the choice to fly in it. So provided all goes well, yes.

Tricky question indeed.