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Op doesn't have time for interviews (programming.dev)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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Post:

You have three switches in one room and a single light bulb in another room. You are allowed to visit the room with the light bulb only once. How do you figure out which switch controls the bulb? Write your answer in the comments before looking at other answers.

Comment:

If this were an interview question, the correct response would be "Do you have any relevant questions for me? Because have a long list of things that more deserving of my precious time than to think about this!

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[–] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

if anyoen is curous on the answer, you flip one and wait till you think a light bulb gets warm enough from ambient that youd notice. you then turn that off and turn another on.

if light = on, second switch you hit

if light = off && bulb = warm, it was the first switch

else switch 3

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Doesn't say I can't leave the door open of the room with a light, or just put someone else in the room while I flick the switchs, use a few mirrors to bounce the light back to me,

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    of course, nothing says you can't but programming (and engineering) is not just solving the problem, but solving the problem efficiently.

    one who lacks optimization knowledge would run into situations like the rockstar employee who originally wrote the parser for GTAO that made it take over 5 minutes to load GTAO, till someone else rewrote the parser in order to get people loaded in quicker. It's basically the weed out for the devs people complain about when something uses way more resources than it needs to.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago*

    That's not the answer. It's an answer. The question isn't very contained so there are a lot of answers. You can get someone else to switch the switches in order while you watch. Or you can install a camera in the room and then pull the switches. You can keep the door open to see which switches works, etc. Probably a million more solutions.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    This assumes that the light was off from the start but the question doesn't specify that.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    if you want to avoid that problem, you would just add the step at the very start: have all the bulbs in off and wait a bit for all the bulbs to cool off if you needed to be sure.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    wdym "have all the bulbs in off". You can't verify that without looking into the room and then you've burnt your one shot.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    you get to the point where no question can ever be asaked to you because you believe in the manipulation of the question over to the point that you're intentionally looking for ways to break the question rather than assuming you and the question giver has the same assumption given the question circumstance.

    If you go out and look for dumb things like that, there is basically no question in the universe thats answerable.

    Do you question if gravity and friction exist if someone asks you how fast something is moving? and what values they are?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    We can check that gravity and friction exists right now, without leaving the room. It's also quite specific situations that don't have either one.

    Here, how the switches are related to the light is already in question, and dumb wiring jobs are more common than anyone wants.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago*

    but you dont know the values to which they are to br able to ask a question involving it which is the point. youre put in a situation where you dont know everything. there are things you assume the question giver assumes else questions are never answerable. they arent given to you as a gotcha situation, especially in the context as a programming question.

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