Well, that was a waste of time

[luckykaa]

Had an interview.

Games company in Ealing.  Well, I'd told the agent what my minimum rate was so presumably they'd pay it but that actually seems highly unlikely.  They wanted a gameplay programmer.  They didn't even seem all that intereted in anyone particularly skilled.  They wanted me to do a C++ test, so I nitpicked (yes, you can have a NULL C++ reference.  "When would you use recursion"? "Never").

I'm not even convinced they were interviewing for a contractor.  They didn't mention much about the job and seemed more interested in what I want to do which seems odd if it is a contract.  And I realy don;t think I came over that well.  I sold myself well on skills but I was way too arrogant.  But that's because I really don't care.

Feel the most useful part of today was listening to a couple of hours of an audiobook.

Curiously, I also got a request for an interview from Rockstar.  Why is is still all games companies?  And why did it take them over 3 months to reply?

Comments

[ingaborg.livejournal.com]

It's really odd.

I still get quite a few enquiries from games companies because that's most of what's on my CV. But really it isn't where I want to be.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

You would never, ever use recursion? As a point of principle?

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Not in any real world situation I can think of. It's fine for tower of Hanoi because that has bounded depth, but that's not a real world problem. It's a toy example. Also perfectly okay for sorting, but if there isn't a sort() function.

And outside of those I can't think of any time that recursion is the best solution. In a language with tail call optimisation (i.e. not C++) it's fine to use recursion for lists.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that was interesting to hear. Not being a real developer, I was curious what someone with much more experience would say. I've used it for working over XML but it may have not been the best thing to do.

Not having a ready-made sort to borrow seems to me like a really reliable early warning that I am going to wish I was doing something else. (Although, again, maybe this stems from inexperience)

Does tail call optimisation actually exist in any mainstream commercial language? Much as I'd love to use Scheme at work, I can't really see it happening.