OK, this frosts me. There's a Perl job posting that wants the applicant to solve a problem:
Given a string of arbitrary length, write a perl program that will print out the palindrome(s) of longest length in the string. Assume there are no special characters, so "!c aba c!" would be considered a palindrome; also, in "abcbb", "bcb" would be considered a palindrome. Assume the string is coming in via STDIN.This is actually a nice clever problem. I'm sure MJD could solve this while typing one-handed during a television commercial break, but I know that I had to think for at least five or ten minutes before getting a decent solution.
However, as if to completely spit in the face of this challenge, a Perl Monastery monk known only as BUU has decided to post the question openly, without any reference to the job posting. And as a result, got a lot of clever solutions, more clever than his first attempt.
It took another clever monk to figure out what was going on. Thank goodness for the eyes of Limbic~Region.
Look, I know times may be desparate and all, but to resort to cheating... that really frosts me.
Re:I can imagine...
merlyn on 2004-08-13T15:53:23
I'm not saying that I have the only possible explanation for the events, given the apparent facts. I hope it's clear as to what parts of my statements are facts, and what parts are conclusions I've drawn. If you draw a different conclusion, that's entirely your choice. I would hope that you're an independent thinker.Re:I can imagine...
phillup on 2004-08-13T17:41:32
If you draw a different conclusion, that's entirely your choice.
Sadly, I didn't.
And that got *me* "frosted". So, I went upstairs and got another cup of coffee.
Then, I remembered that once or twice in my life I've been wrong. (did I say "life"?;-))
With that in mind, I would have use a sniper rifle instead of a shot gun. But I would still pull the trigger.
So, I would have simply sent an email to the company alerting them to the thread and let them decide on what to do should any of the submissions be similar.
That way, if none were... no other damage would have occurred.
But, that is just me.
(And... being me, I can assure you that the email would not be nearly as effective as coming from you.;-))
Re:Innocent bystanders
japhy on 2004-08-13T21:28:05
I don't think buu crossed any terrible lines, like some people are accusing him of doing. That aside, I'm curious what exactly you meant in your O'Reilly post when you wrote:
A poster calling himself only "BUU"
I'm curious why it matters what his perlmonks nickname is. I call myself only "japhy"; what's the big deal? It sounds like you're trying to create a sinister atmosphere.Re:Innocent bystanders
merlyn on 2004-08-13T22:02:58
I believe the operative word there is only. We all know who "japhy" there is. It's you. We've met you. You make no secret of your alias. But BUU is only BUU... an anonymous poster.Re:Innocent bystanders
brian_d_foy on 2004-08-14T04:30:45
I only say that because I have no other way to identify him. You should notice that I also try to attribute quotes and code to real names in my other blogs. I tend to that here either too, if I know who people are or can find out their name.
I don't mind the use of handles or nicknames, but I think people should own up to who they are. I certainly put my real name with my posts.
Re:Just like the real world
KLB on 2004-09-24T22:05:32
Indeed, this is not "cheating" even if he intended to use the posted solutions to apply for the job. If you don't know how to come up with the best solution yourself, from an employer's standpoint, knowing where to get it is 99.44% as good. Nobody would object to someone Googling to see if there was a script out there to solve the problem. Well, thanks to that thread, Googling will now find many solutions.
