What not to do while interviewing programmers

I have over the years interviewed 10s of Java Developers or Web Developers .This blog post is about what not to do while interviewing.

Cringely, here’s an idea for text entry.

Cringely has hit the nail on the head regarding the future or handheld devices. These things are not phones anymore. They are all handheld computers which happen to have phone hardware as well. Processor speed, memory capacity and all such critical hardware inputs which make a device snappy are all doubling in capacity but halving in cost. We are in the midst of the same cycle the PC went through between 1998 and 2004.

However as Cringely pointed out the holy grail for handheld devices is the accuracy and speed of typing. Ergonomics wise Blackberrys with their full QWERTY keyboards are slightly ahead of the rest, but even then typing more than a 3 sentences at one go, would be an extremely painful experience. So what’s the solution.

It’s called Auto Complete.

BB Apps I downloaded from App World

Blackberry launched their App World in India a few a days ago, and so I went ahead and did a bit of look into.

First thing. Paid apps are not available. Only free apps. While this may be a good thing to draw more people in, there are a whole lot of users willing to spend money to buy some great paid apps. Allowing paid apps would have also given Indian Developers a platform to showcase their India Specific Blackberry apps.

Anyway, over to free apps.