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baconrecipe
4 years ago
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Job Interview Question: Would you be comfortable if the optimizer relied on your asserts?
Here’s my answer after brief consideration: Preposterous! Any assertions I put in my code are for my own defense, against authoring poor software. Assertions aren’t to be twisted into something that can be used against me. In fact, if the compiler wants to be smart, it ought to turn my assertions into compile-time guarantees!
It’s a great question though, because I know my own answer is wrong for at least one reason and probably more.
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I’d also be okay with a single thread where all those stories can live.
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I always dread the internet on april fools. For me it’s about equivalent losing my internet connection for a day.
…So I would even be okay with a single thread for all the real stories. Anything to find the real content would be nice.
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I went ahead and created the April Fools thread https://lobste.rs/s/0jhxzo/april_fools_day_2014
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I think his follow-up statement is helpful to read alongside the article. A portion:
“Toward the end of the interview, Maria asked me what advice I would offer women who are not comfortable asking for pay raises. I answered that question completely wrong. Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”
I think his original advice was terrible, but I’m suspicious of the article’s quick jump to sexism. In fact, it’s not a high quality article, IMO, and doesn’t belong on Lobsters.
Here is the reality. Microsoft knows how much they pay their people, what they do, and if they are men and women. If he really thought that men and women should be payed equally for equal work, he can do it. He has that power. But he won’t because he would probably be fired.
The fact that Microsoft is NOT paying equally for equal work is precisely because they don’t care. And really it is an advantage for Microsoft’s board of directors not to pay equally because it raises profit. Which of course shareholders love because the next idiot will buy the shares at a higher price.
So yeah, if he REALLY cared, even more than his own job, he can be radical and do it. And would get fired. But at least the women who work their would get their raises.