100 Most famous interview Questions and Answers

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100 Most famous interview Questions and Answers

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 1

Michael Valentine Jones (11/1/2012)
George M Parker (11/1/2012)
Love it, mind if I quote you the next time someone asks me that question?:-D
Follow-up question:
What are the properties of brown ACID?

With or without the sugar cube?

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 2

Michael Valentine Jones (11/1/2012)
Jeff Moden (10/31/2012)
Michael Valentine Jones (10/31/2012)
I like to ask a couple of easy trivial questions to get things started, and then ask one that a lot of senior DBA might stumble over. Just to shake things up.
What is the money data type used for?
What function can you use to get the current date and time?
How would you move a 2 TB database from one server to a server at a different site connected via a T1 WAN link with a maximum application downtime of 30 minutes?
The developer candidates I've been interviewing can't make it past your second question (SERIOUSLY!)
The answer to your third question is "Why would you want 30 minutes of downtime when you can do it in virtually 0 seconds?" 🙂
Didn't I mention that it was on SQL Server 7.0?

In that case, "It Depends" on whether it's Tuesday or not.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Dwain Camps SSC Guru Points: 86948 More actions · Answer 3

Luis Cazares (10/31/2012)
GSquared (10/31/2012)
On the other hand ... if anyone ever publishes "Trivial Pursuit, DBA Edition", they could come in very handy indeed!
Would you buy it? Or would you play it?
EDIT: wrong quote.

Playing it could be a great event for the next SQL Saturday!

Enjoying this discussion so now I'm a follower.

My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]
My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?

My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.

Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St

Jason-299789 SSC-Insane Points: 21601 More actions · Answer 4

Like Dwain enjoying the discussion, so following it with interest.

In regards to the ACID I frequently get asked what it means in interviews and I always go blank on what either the I and D mean.

A good interviewer would know how to recognise people who are doing rote repition of something they've simply read.

In regards to the technical side, do any of you actually give interviewees a practical test or just rely on verbal answers?

_________________________________________________________________________
SSC Guide to Posting and Best Practices

Dwain Camps SSC Guru Points: 86948 More actions · Answer 5

I think interviewers should play Jeopardy with the interviewees.

Answer: ambiguous column

Question: What is the error message you get when you don't sufficiently qualify a column reference with the associated table name?

Now that would identify folks that are fast on their feet.

My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]
My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?

My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.

Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St

Gazareth One Orange Chip Points: 27737 More actions · Answer 6

dwain.c (11/2/2012)
I think interviewers should play Jeopardy with the interviewees.
Answer: ambiguous column
Question: What is the error message you get when you don't sufficiently qualify a column reference with the associated table name?
Now that would identify folks that are fast on their feet.

I'll take Transaction Isolation Levels for 500

GSquared SSC Guru Points: 260824 More actions · Answer 7

Gazareth (11/1/2012)
GSquared (11/1/2012)
Molecular combinations of metalic ions with hydrogen weakly bonded, such that when combined with bases, they produce a salt, water, and heat. Many of them are caustic when disolved in an aqueous medium, but not all.
Only metallic ions? Now you're trying to mislead chemistry job interviewees too 🙂

Nope. Deliberately obfuscated the thing. Acids are non-metalic with hydrogen, bases are metalic with hydrox. Hence hydro"chloric" acid, "nitric" acid, "sulfuric" acid. All non-metalic.

Keep in mind, I'm the same guy who wanted to ask about non-boolean Where clauses and semi-deterministic functions. And who went on about "oxyhydraic acid" disolving perfectly in water. (Oxyhydraic acid is water.)

Now that we're into full-on silly mode and have probably scared away anyone looking for actual interview cheat-sheets, I'm willing to expose that all of that is gobbledigook. Non-boolean Where clauses are a source of error messages, not a feature of real queries. No such thing as "semi-deterministic", by definition. And so on.

- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread

"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

ScottPletcher SSC Guru Points: 101098 More actions · Answer 8

How many columns can a table have?

Haven't a clue. If you get even close, you've got a horrible table design anyway.

Who would ask such a Mickey Mouse q??

SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 9

ScottPletcher (11/2/2012)
How many columns can a table have?
Haven't a clue. If you get even close, you've got a horrible table design anyway.
Who would ask such a Mickey Mouse q??

Donald Duck! 😛

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)