Re:Ask about priorities (Score 1)

Nice one. I'll try to reuse this one. My unfavorite is "the one problem you couldn't solve". Lots of hard ones but none too hard to solve so its a dumb question. That's why people do engineering. To solve hard problems. If they can't solve the problems then why are they in the field? The only hard ones are trash product X from vendor which you have to document to the Nth degree before will fix their crap or tell you the workaround. For Java webapps, ask them, "how does IOC relate to the command pattern" (replace IOC with struts or framework du jour). replace "command pattern" with callback pattern. Another good one, how do you like message passing systems? Another good one, what do you know about the OR mapping problem? These are all three rookie mistakes plaguing the industry today. Many frameworks are being made for consultingware and time-wasting versus getting real work done. Oh, another goodie for java webapps, compare and contrast OGNL and the global varialble problem. The list goes on and one but my point is even most "architects" in most SW companies today are making severe rookie mistakes. These cost the company orders of magnitude in development costs and several orders of magnitude in inflexible and very hard to maintain code. More good ones, Agile? Or Fr-Agile? eXtreme? Or eXtremely fragile?