Interview Questions From Hell: Take IV

time to read 2 min | 340 words

It somehow came up in chat today, and it occurs to me that this is yet another great question that I probably will never ask in an interview:

Tell me how System.Object.GetHashCode() works, here is a computer with net connection, google away.

Personally, it took me 11 minutes to find how the implementation worked, and another seven to find it.

Possible reactions:

  • Candidate faints -> Good timing, would've waste my time staying up and talking
  • Cadidate explains that he doesn't care about such things -> and if he can convince me that he doesn't care for the right reasons, excellent.
  • Canidate hazzard a guess that is not even remotedly close to the truth, like serializing the object to binary and hashing that -> interesting approach, remind me to send a perf team to your next employer :-)
  • Candidate explains that they don't know, but give a reasonable alternative for it -> nice
  • Candidate goes and find the implementation -> good, now explain it to me :-)
  • Candidate gives the answer of the top of their head -> dude, if you weren't on the BCL team, you are wierd

Hm, I wasn't on the BCL team, so this make me wierd... Maybe I should rethink this approach