Darren New wrote:

> Last time I was interviewing, I asked people
> 
> "Write a program that prints the prime numbers from 2 to N, where N is 
> passed on the command line."
> 
> The first three "experienced programmers" we were hiring couldn't manage 
> that with 30 minutes and hints.

Maybe they don't know what a "prime number" is? (A surprising number of 
people don't know this. And of the ones who know what one is, a 
surprising number of them can't figure out how to FIND such numbers, or 
even CHECK one...)

OOC, are prime numbers [or number theory generally] relevant to what 
you're hiring these people for?

OTOH, it may just be that they're not very good programmers. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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