How old were you when you first started programming?

I was about 12 years old. That combined with my love of Nintendo really makes it sound like I never left the house, but I found time to play sports and get in trouble, really… …

How did you get started in programming?

A mysterious friend of mine (Jim MacDonald, who all but doesn’t exist online) and I used to play games all day, like Dragon Warrior and Shining Force. Then one day he wondered how games were made, and found…

What was your first language?

QBASIC! This has gotta be the easiest language to learn, and that says a lot in an age where PHP exists. I think more developers would benefit from starting with this fantastically simple language.

What was the first real program you wrote?

I wrote a program I simply called Dragon, which was a direct ripoff of Jim’s game Wizard or something. It used QBASIC’s DRAW commands to draw shapes and PLAY for sound effects. It was a single-battle, turn-based game pitting you (a knight) against a dragon. It was amazingly bad but pretty fun (for 12-year-olds anyway).

What languages have you used since you started programming?

Professionally: Only PHP and JavaScript

For fun and/or school: BASIC, C, C++, Perl, Python, QBASIC, Turbo Pascal, Visual BASIC

What was your first professional programming gig?

Working for Dav Glass at SchoolCenter. I was a PHP programmer making a measly $10/hour coding content management tools for K-12 schools. I was quickly promoted to lead designer (odd, right?), then when the company realized we needed engineers more than designers, put back into the development department. About a year after Dav moved to Yahoo!, I followed.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Oh hell yes. I’m always trying to learn as much as I can. Learning new languages is fascinating, and learning more about what you already are familiar with to me should be a daily exercise. If I had had the knowledge I have now when I was younger, I can’t imagine what I would have built by now. Interesting to think about!

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

In a normal curriculum in school, students are taught to read well before they are taught to write. I’m not sure why this isn’t the case in programming. You’ve always got these wannabe developers that try to run before they can walk, and they end up tripping. There’s no shame in beginning modestly.

I recommend to anyone of any programming level: read other people’s code. The Internet is the ideal place to learn.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had… programming?

Everytime I learn a new language, my first task is to build a game. I’ve been doing this for over a decade, in every single language I’ve dabbled in. But I think it was the most fun in QBASIC. I built an intentionally awful game called Seanbaby’s Magic Bus Ride Trip for you guessed it… Seanbaby. Working in Flash is really fun too, but nothing beats JavaScript.

Who’s next?

Let’s go with Isaac Schlueter, since he’s a great writer and always has interesting things to say!

This is the first part of many articles I’m going to write about common interview questions in the vague and mysterious world of web development.
There are of course an almost infinite amount of questions one could be asked during an interview, but my questions are typically going to be
more about syntax and semantics than the probably more revealing questions on algorithms and problem-solving.

Without further ado, here are some common questions engineers get asked to see if they understand the basic syntax of PHP.

• What are the differences between single and double quotes?
• What are the differences between include() and require()?
• What does the === operator do?
• What does $$ signify?
• What are the various ways to append to an index array?
• How do you debug in PHP?
• Create a class and extend it.

Q: What are the differences between single and double quotes?

A:
The primary difference is that a string enclosed with double quotes is parsed. A string enclosed in single quotes is just a string literal.

<br /> var $foo = ‘bar’;</p> <p>echo ‘The value of foo is: $foo’; // The value of foo is: $foo<br /> echo “The value of foo is: $foo”; // The value of foo is: bar<br />

Q: What are the differences between include() and require()?

A:
The most prominent difference is that require() will throw an error if it fails to include the given file, and include() will not.

Q: What does the === operator do?

A:
Triple equals checks for both value and type:

<br /> $foo = ‘bar’;<br /> $pos = strpos($foo, ‘b’);</p> <p>if ($pos) {} // false: 0 is a falsy value<br /> if ($pos !== false) {} // true: 0 is not of the same type as false<br />

I like to ask if the engineer can think of an example (like the one above).
It’s almost guaranteed that a programmer that has been developing in PHP for an extended period needed === before.

Q: What does $$ signify?

A:
Double dollar sign signifies a variable variable:

<br /> $color = ‘red’;<br /> $red = ‘#ff0000′;</p> <p>echo $color; // red<br /> echo $$color; // #ff0000<br />

Q: What are the various ways to append to an index array?

A:
[see code]

<br /> $my_array = array(1, 2, 3);</p> <p>$my_array[] = 4;<br /> array_push($my_array, 5, 6);</p> <p>$my_array[count($my_array)] = 7; // This is possible but dumb<br />

I like this question because it’s easy on the surface, and engineers will almost always get the first two. When I say there’s one more way, an engineer’s
response is usually pretty revealing. Getting an answer like, “No there’s not,” shows (unearned) arrogance.
Candidates that figure it out on their own show thinking on their feet.

Q: How do you debug in PHP?

I think it’s probably most common for developers to use the quick-and-dirty echo statement. A better practice is to use error_log
or an external debugging library, because they won’t muck up the page and potentially cause other bugs.

Q: Create a class and extend it.

Not really a question, but still important.
I also ask about constructors and deconstructors, and make sure the candidate knows how to call the extended class’s constructor:

<br /> class Foo {<br /> function __construct() {}<br /> private function privateMethod() {}<br /> public function publicMethod() {}<br /> }</p> <p>class Bar extends Foo {<br /> function __construct() {<br /> parent::__construct();<br /> }<br /> }<br />

I also like to ask if public is required (it’s not because it’s the default state), and make sure that the engineer knows about protected
as well.
I like to have conversations about object-oriented programming rather than just asking syntax questions, because I’ve found it’s easier.

That’s it, really. These questions are just to see if an engineer is familiar with the surface of the language.
It could be argued that PHP is simple and quick to learn, and that these questions would shine a positive light on someone who spent a few hours reading about
PHP, and a negative light on experienced engineers who are fantastic but not very familiar with PHP.
It’s a valid argument, but again, this is just to test PHP knowledge.

If you know any questions similar to these, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.