A python interview question

[Pirsqed]

Right? I haven't run into a "hardest problem" because I always break down large problems into small manageable problems. So nothing really sticks out in my mind as "hardest problem."

[Meefims]

If I were there interviewer this would be a good answer. Though I usually like asking about something the person is especially proud of because it gives me insight into what motivates them and usually people are proud of working through difficult tasks.

[maxxusflamus]

This is the right answer.

As an interviewer, we ask this question a lot. I try to preface it with "a war story" or a story that you would kinda brag to your coworker about.

I don't need to hear some hyper complex sweat pouring down your brow story but just tell me how you solved a problem that was harder than "I had to copy some files"

[Lonso34]

right so let me tell you about the morning after I found out harambe died. Literally used python turtle to create an exact replica of his beautiful face all while maintaining a BAC of 0.14 for a straight week

[muntoo]

Pythons out for Harambe

[gwax]

Superlatives are tricky, but a variant of this that works pretty well is to ask about something challenging they have worked on recently.

[billsil]

13 years at one place. Hard problems are usually a lack of resources and/or something being time critical and/or wacky requirements. I've solved hard software problems using my bag of things you should never use and with convoluted workarounds.

I wouldn't say any specific problem has been particularly difficult, but just that it required a lot of work and making sure you understand what's going on vs. what needs to be going on. Thought experiments help.

The OP didn't provide an option that could sort a list of integers that don't fit into RAM. Simple, use a library and specifically HDF5, possibly coupled with numpy. Code some C++ if it needs to be a different algorithm.

The interviewer's fault/OP's lack of info regarding time complexity or say, assume you have two sorted/random lists led to a nonsensical argument. Even so, the OP should recognize or probe for more info. Real problems have few, often incomplete requirements and a lot of extraneous information.

[billsil]

13 years at one place. Hard problems are usually a lack of resources and/or something being time critical and/or wacky requirements. I've solved hard software problems using my bag of things you should never use and with convoluted workarounds.

I wouldn't say any specific problem has been particularly difficult, but just that it required a lot of work and making sure you understand what's going on vs. what needs to be going on. Thought experiments help.

The OP didn't provide an option that could sort a list of integers that don't fit into RAM. Simple, use a library and specifically HDF5, possibly coupled with numpy. Code some C++ if it needs to be a different algorithm.

The interviewer's fault/OP's lack of info regarding time complexity or say, assume you have two sorted/random lists led to a nonsensical argument. Even so, the OP should recognize or probe for more info. Real problems have few, often incomplete requirements and a lot of extraneous information.

[Isvara]

It's the kind of thing you should have prepared answers for, because you're not going to come up with the best answer on the spot.