Why Java Interviews are Farji

Java Interviews are Farji

Farji; Hindi for bogus. Not the exact word I'm looking for, but here's an example. I took up a Human Computer Interaction course during my 5th semester. The professor took lectures just for the sake of completing 42 hours of teaching time, and we memorized Fitt's law and 18 other such obvious laws, word for word, just for an A grade. Farji.

Coming to the Java interview I gave recently. I applied for a scholarship in a nanodegree program in Android, taken by Udacity. The initial test was an easy Java based inheritance question. The question stated if it takes you more than 15 minutes to complete it, reconsider not applying for the program. Haha, I quite liked that.
The next round was just a super, super long form questioning everything I've ever done. I'm almost sure they would've selected me purely on the basis of how I managed to fill every optional textbox. Especially the one that asked me about my experience in

"Disruptive digital technology innovation resolving critical social challenge"

Holy moley. Not one word in that question contains a word with less than 6 letters! I won't lie. I googled that sentence. :p

The optional questions I filled up. The third. Hilarious. :D

And the interview.
A short 10 minute talk because (a) the interviewer was a 22 year old techie and (b) he was yawning every other minute and probably reading a Wikipedia page/code or, least likely of all, furiously trying to reading every movement of mine through his laptop screen.

Here's why his questions on Android/Java didn't make sense to me.

• Activity cycle. It's such a standard question, that if Android was a speakable language, Activity Cycle would be the equivalent of asking a man his name and where he lives.
  Aye aye sir, my name is onCreate(), and am currently on onPause() island. I look forward to meeting you at onDestroy().
• Intent, Service, Manifest. Honestly, GitHub. Please go through my GitHub. You'll understand I know that shit. Asking me to define them is like asking me to define a camel (yes those things that take you from one desert to another).
  Alright sir, an Intent is an object [camel reference] that takes you from one Activity (desert) to another (desert).
• And the Java questions.
  Abstract classes. Interfaces. Inheritance. Access Modifiers. I made a mistake here. I've used them all and I have come to understand how Java works quite well, and know how to write expandable code. All experience. But every time I go for such interviews I should open TutorialsPoint and go through these small definitions that interviewers look for.
• The Horrible Java questions
  JVM. Garbage cleaning. Bytecode.
  More definitions. A person coding in Java to make softwares (and not compete on codechef) will know, or have a rough idea of these basics. The exact definition that can be answered in an interview? Open tutorialspoint 2 hours before the exam.

Rather than asking the interviewee such silly questions, like definitions, give me a code that I can solve only if I know Java. Questions on implementation, using actual code, on all topics; access modifiers, interfaces and abstract classes can be asked with ease, and they'd be fun to ask, and answer.
Aha! This gives me an idea of coming up with a list of questions that should be asked in a Java interview. Yes! Haha. And the next time I sit for an interview where they ask me silly questions on Java, I'll hand them the link to my blog.
As far as Android is concerned, it barely matters if you know definitions. As long as you know how to Google, and use libraries/use online code as per your needs, you know the basics of Android. Knowing how to write extensible, expandable code is a different matter, and the only way you can test this is by looking at the candidate's existing code repos.

Well, I hope I do get through. This nanodegree does mean quite a bit to me, though I'm not sure there is a lot left for me to learn in basic Android development. I say that with confidence. Though, I have not delved into game development, or jni so far.

My Human Computer Interaction prof awarded me a BC(6/10) grade, for the record. Farji.

Update.
I got selected for the nanodegree. 1000 people got selected in total, and about 10 from my university.
I'm quite glad I got in! So the interviewer was a nice person, thank you sir!
I went through the course outline.
Interesting things about this course :
1. About half the people posting on the Nanodegree Google group are Indian. I was hoping for a more well balanced class, people from all over the world. But then you can't help it if every 6th person on this planet is Indian. :p
2. You have about 1 year to complete the course! That is A LOT!
3. Flipkart hired 3 people exclusively on the basis of this nanodegree. A publicity campaign by Google to get more Indians to enroll for this course? Possible.
4. The course structure and roadmap is really well designed. I'm quite impressed with the way Udacity works! Would love to work for them one day.