Hope to Desperation!
The weekend started well, I have the authorisation I need to hire 4 top notch developers, I send out a short interview test to the agencies, and am told they have some good people.
The test is simple ... to write a small application that can tell the difference in days between 2 dates. There are only 5 basic requirements:
· It should be written in C# and .NET
· The code must not use the DateTime or other date functionality provided within the .NET library, this is a test of coding, not of knowledge of the .NET FCL
· The code can be as complex or as simple as you think is needed to meet the requirements.
· The code must be able to be compiled, run and tested.
· The code should be supplied in a Zip file
There is also a set of test data.
Should be simple ... or so you would think...
So far, terrible code has been sent to me. One example (apart from being untestable due to being a single method in an aspx page) made at least 5 or 6 fundamental programming mistakes including catching Exception, using x=x+1; rather than x++; , and ignoring my requirements entirely by using DateTime and TimeSpan ...
So ... I'm back to despair...