Programming Interviews Exposed PDF
Preview Programming Interviews Exposed
Programming Interviews Exposed Secrets to Landing Your Next Job Second Edition John Mongan Noah Suojanen Eric Giguère 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page iii 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page ii Programming Interviews Exposed Secrets to Landing Your Next Job Second Edition 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page i 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page ii Programming Interviews Exposed Secrets to Landing Your Next Job Second Edition John Mongan Noah Suojanen Eric Giguère 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page iii Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job Second Edition Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-0-470-12167-2 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Mongan, John, 1976- Programming interviews exposed : secrets to landing your next job / John Mongan, Noah Suojanen, Eric Giguère. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-470-12167-2 (pbk.) 1. Employment interviewing. 2. Computer programming — Vocational guidance. I. Suojanen, Noah, 1978- II. Giguère, Eric, 1967- III. Title. HF5549.5.I6M664 2007 650.14’4 — dc22 2007003315 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRE- SENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WAR- RANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFES- SIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HERE- FROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOM- MENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be avail- able in electronic books. 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page iv To my family —Noah Suojanen To those who encouraged me, living and dead —John Mongan To my parents, Jean-Claude and Marie-Joelle, who encouraged and supported my love of programming —Eric Giguère 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page v 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page vi Credits Acquisitions Editor Carol Long Development Editor Maureen Spears Production Editor William A. Barton Copy Editor Luann Rouff Editorial Manager Mary Beth Wakefield Production Manager Tim Tate Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Richard Swadley Vice President and Executive Publisher Joseph B. Wikert Graphics and Production Specialists Sean Decker Carrie A. Foster Jennifer Mayberry Alicia B. South Quality Control Technicians John Greenough Brian H. Walls Project Coordinator Erin Smith Proofreading and Indexing Aptara Anniversary Logo Design Richard Pacifico 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page vii 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page viii Acknowledgments Putting out any book, even a second edition, requires a lot of work from many people. John and Eric would first of all like to thank Maureen Spears, our editor, for her patience throughout this process and the work she did in switching the book over to the WROX format. We’d also like to thank Carol Long for spearheading the updating of the original book, and everyone else at Wiley who worked on the produc- tion, marketing, and distribution of this book. No second edition would have been possible without the first edition, however, and the many people who contributed to it. For this reason, we also thank our original editors, Margaret Hendrey and Marjorie Spencer, for their patience and helpfulness. We are also grateful to our original reviewers and advisors, Dan Hill, Elise Lipkowitz, Charity Lu, Rob Maguire, and Tom Mongan. Dan’s contributions in particular were tremendous — the quality of the first edition was vastly improved by his careful and meticulous reviews. 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page ix 01_121672 ffirs.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page x Contents Acknowledgments ix Contents xi Acknowledgments ix Preface for the Second Edition xvii Preface to the First Edition xix Chapter 1: Before the Search 1 Know Yourself 1 Know the Market 3 Basic Market Information 3 What About Outsourcing? 3 Develop Marketable Skills 4 Sanitize Your Online Profile 5 Summary 6 Chapter 2: The Job Application Process 7 Finding and Contacting Companies 7 Networking 7 Working with Headhunters 8 Contacting the Company Directly 8 Job Fairs and Classified Ads 9 The Interview Process 9 Screening Interviews 9 On-Site Interviews 10 Dress 10 A Recruiter’s Role 11 Offers and Negotiation 12 Dealing with Recruiter Pressures 12 Negotiating Your Salary 12 Accepting and Rejecting Offers 13 Summary 14 02_121672 ftoc.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page xi xii Contents Chapter 3: Approaches to Programming Problems 15 The Process 15 The Scenario 15 The Problems 16 Which Languages to Use 16 Interactivity Is Key 17 Solving the Questions 17 The Basic Steps 18 When You Get Stuck 19 Analyzing Your Solution 20 Analyzing Two Examples 20 How Big-O Analysis Works 21 Best, Average, and Worst Cases 22 How to Do Big-O Analysis 22 Optimizations and Big-O Analysis 23 Summary 23 Chapter 4: Linked Lists 25 Kinds of Linked List 25 Doubly-Linked Lists 27 Circularly-Linked Lists 27 Basic Linked List Operations 27 Tracking the Head Element 27 Traversing 28 Inserting and Deleting Elements 29 Linked List Problems 30 Stack Implementation 30 Maintain Linked List Tail Pointer 35 Bugs in removeHead 40 Mth-to-Last Element of a Linked List 41 List Flattening 44 List Unflattening 48 Null or Cycle 49 Summary 52 Chapter 5: Trees and Graphs 53 Trees 53 Binary Trees 55 Binary Search Trees 56 Lookup 57 02_121672 ftoc.qxp 3/23/07 8:56 PM Page xii
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