I’m in the process of writing a few good Flash interview questions for some possible candidates for my replacement as I am moving on to bigger and better things :sen:
I have some in mind but before I share them I’d like to here from some of you guys.
Level is senior and we use AS 2.
TIA
This is for site development right. So keep the questions based around technical knowledge.
Tween libraries.
Dynamic Integration.
3d Libraries (probably papervision 3d).
Then all the basic organizing of code and commenting classes and such for team projects.
[whisper]I feel bad for the senior developer that only uses AS3… thats gotta be like a punch in the face :lol:[/whisper]
Question: Do you Flash?
What’s a vector graphic? :lol:
How many wood companies could Adobe takeover if Adobe could takeover wood companies?
Ok, back on topic now,
I’m not a big Actionscripter these days, so I’m out of my element, but if its for site development I would think that organizational skills are one of the main things you’re looking for in a candidate… skillz are skillz, but its the skillz you don’t see that are the important ones
Off the top of my head…
Eeew, AS2 only? No wonder you’re moving on to bigger and better things. :lol:
I typically ask simple syntax questions, and move up from there. Things like this:
*
This is a great question, very revealing. Do they unwittingly make it an anonymous function, like [FONT=Courier New]myFunction = function()[/FONT], or do they forget to add they return type? (i.e. Void, int, whatever.) Do they properly type the variable, or do they take advantage of the fact that AS2 is ridiculously loose? Are they totally unqualified and unable to [FONT=Courier New]trace[/FONT]?! (It happens!) 
*
2. Will you write a simple class and then call a new instance of the class?
*This is a similarly revealing question, as many people - though they may be qualified Flash coders for small projects - are totally unaware of how to maintain proper object oriented code. Even though AS2 has some scoping barriers, it’s still very doable and useful for the big stuff. A senior level flash developer should find this question easy.
I also like to have them show me some of the more complex code that they’ve written, and briefly explain how it works. If they have no code with them or online, show them some of your code, and have them take a minute to go over it, and explain to you what’s going on. I had one guy that was some sort of template ripping genius and he couldn’t write a line of code himself, it was all ripped off. Depending on how advanced their knowledge should be, ask them simple design pattern questions like the purpose of a singleton, or what interfaces and abstract classes are for, and the difference between them.
Just make sure they talk about code as much as possible, it can be easy to feed them answers if you aren’t careful. 
Listen to Anogar.
I’d like to add that a good flash dev should also be very aware of performance related issues, so stuff like populating arrays with Math.sin values instead of looping them in an enter_frame, caching static content as bitmaps etc is something they should know well.
[quote=Anogar;2343676]Eeew, AS2 only? No wonder you’re moving on to bigger and better things. :lol:
[/quote]
yup, i.e. my utter lack of knowledge in the as 3 forum :lol:
Thanks guys, appreciate the help
This is a great question, very revealing. Do they unwittingly make it an anonymous function, like myFunction = function(), or do they forget to add they return type? (i.e. Void, int, whatever.) Do they properly type the variable, or do they take advantage of the fact that AS2 is ridiculously loose? Are they totally unqualified and unable to trace?! (It happens!)
And what do you learn from this… seams pointless trying to catch out a senior programmer by a finding out if he/she prefers to duck or strict type their variables - in a half assed manner i may add - of if they use anonymous or named functions, just ask them, you will probably learn a lot more about their style also. Note: senior being the operative word here, senior = resume and references I assume… :lol:
■■■■ Phenex, I had that exact question in mind, and you stole it! :lol:
Yeah, the very first question must be: Do you flash and where? 
It speaks to the person’s commitment to quality, to readable code, and to their knowledge of good coding practices.
Anyone can make a Flash project work, when I’m hiring someone to work with other developers and collaborate on projects, I want someone who writes clean, readable code and uses proper practices. If a programmer is taking dumb shortcuts during an interview when I’m scrutinizing their code, they’re definitely going to take a lot of useless shortcuts during actual production work on tight deadlines, and I don’t want that.
Besides, you’d be amazed how many weak candidates this weeds out right off the bat, folks who despite their good resume can’t even complete the question. References and resume do NOT mean that someone is even remotely competent, you’ll learn that when you start interviewing people, it’s just scary.
Easy to lie on a resume. Hard to lie when you’re told to write code.
Fair points you make, personally I find asking questions best, to me it’s harder to bluff if you have to talk at length about something for a prolonged period, simple things like whats the modulo operator and uses for it to more hardcore topics like inheritance vs composition and why (not expecting an answer 1/2 the time).
I know all about the recruitment process, there are so many bums, bluffers and monkeys out there it’s really unbelievable, this side of the Atlantic is no different, lately there seems to be a serious shortage of good programmers and designers. Recruitment is a hateful process, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I did a stint in kfc when I was 17 :lol:
Haha, I’m with ya man, it’s amazing how many people are just totally unqualified. Doing interviews is painful. I guess I just like seeing people actually write the code, I feel like that’s kind of impossible to fake.
I find getting people to figure out what is wrong with prewritten code is a good way of seeing how they think. Maybe even “optimise this code”. Getting them to write code is definitely a must in an interview, and something which i feel doesn’t get done as often as it should.
lol
How many wood companies could Adobe takeover if Adobe could takeover wood companies?
The ultimate…
If there was one flash question that you didn’t want to answer what would it be?
Cruel, but works. Optimizing half-assed code (And timing the result) is a great way of seeing code creativity.
It is, in fact I recently went on an interview and had to do the same thing. Basically it was some pretty poor actionscript making an attempt to load and parse an XML file. It was actually really easy to fix though, and I thought to myself “are they kidding, this is all I have to do to?”.
The funny thing was the guy who interviewed me (another Flash dev) told me he’s been interviewing for a month and a half and I was the first person to actually finish the task period. I found it really shocking that he said that. It was for a Senior Dev position, and the only thing you had to do was trace all the node values in a 1 level deep XML file.
So to Anogar’s point, there really are a lot of guys that really have no clue to what they are doing. But if you’ve never really used XML/Flash I guess it would be a pretty tricky task to do what they asked me. But then again what Flash Dev doesn’t use XML?
Edit: BTW I didn’t take the job for other reasons.
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