That's a trashy, misleading question to ask, designed to make the interviewee look like a fool. If I don't like a programming language, I don't learn it (unless I have to). For this reason, somebody's reasons for disliking a particular language are likely to be riddled with inaccuracies unless they're into reading up heavily on languages they don't use.
How can you get to dislike a programming language without learning it first, at least well enough to have things you don't like about it? If your reasons for not liking it are "riddled with inaccuracies", then maybe what you don't like about it isn't that language but something else that you have mistaken for that language?
This is at a company where they listed 11 (!!) fantasy languages in the job description. They want candidates to be the type of people who do projects in novel languages just because, that can reason about programming language design issues, that have well-founded reasons for not liking things.
Yes, it would bait idiots who "don't like C because you can only define variables at the top of a function", or "don't like Java because you have to put classes in different files" -- but that's intentional.
As in 11 academic languages that you would get paid to use in your fantasies (the company advertising the job doesn't use most of them, they just want coworkers that like them too).
Comments
That's a trashy, misleading question to ask, designed to make the interviewee look like a fool. If I don't like a programming language, I don't learn it (unless I have to). For this reason, somebody's reasons for disliking a particular language are likely to be riddled with inaccuracies unless they're into reading up heavily on languages they don't use.
How can you get to dislike a programming language without learning it first, at least well enough to have things you don't like about it? If your reasons for not liking it are "riddled with inaccuracies", then maybe what you don't like about it isn't that language but something else that you have mistaken for that language?
I usually like to ask: how would you change your favorite language?
You must be able to criticize what you love to be a good programmer.
Now that's a quality question that demands critical thinking.
This is at a company where they listed 11 (!!) fantasy languages in the job description. They want candidates to be the type of people who do projects in novel languages just because, that can reason about programming language design issues, that have well-founded reasons for not liking things.
Yes, it would bait idiots who "don't like C because you can only define variables at the top of a function", or "don't like Java because you have to put classes in different files" -- but that's intentional.
"11 fantasy languages"
As in 11 not-real languages. Languages that don't exist?
I'm not sure I follow.
As in 11 academic languages that you would get paid to use in your fantasies (the company advertising the job doesn't use most of them, they just want coworkers that like them too).
oh no, all this time I have been putting many classes in one file. I guess I should have compiled more often.