Should we hire someone who writes C in Perl? [closed]

Answer 1

Hmm, I don't see anything in the request that quotes should be removed, and words should be removed. The input file had the word " rubbish", and it's not in the output.

I've seen CSV files, exported with quotes, would expect those same quotes back. If your specification had been to remove quotes and extraneous words past quotes, maybe this work would be required.

I'd watch that, and the verbosity. Look for somebody lazier (compliment in Perl).

open (IN, "csv.csv");
while (<IN>) {
    #print $_;
    chomp;
    @array = split(/,/,$_);
    print "[User Id] =  $array[0]  [Name] = $array[1]  [Level] =  $array[2] [Numeric ID] = $array[3]\n";    
}

Answer 2

As a non Perl (?programmer?), I have to say, that is probably the most legible Perl I have ever read! :)

Hiring someone over something like a scripting language that can be learned in days to weeks (if it's a worthwhile scripting language!) seems highly flawed in the first place.

Personally I would probably hire this person for different reasons. The code is well structured and reasonably well commented. Language specifics can easily be taught later.

Answer 3

I don't care whether he used regular expressions or not. I also don't care whether his Perl looks like C or not. The question that really matters is: is this good Perl? And I'd say it's not:

1. He didn't use use strict
2. He didn't enable warnings.
3. He's using the old-fashioned two-argument version of open.
4. The "open file" comment hurts and gives me the impression that code he usually writes doesn't contain any comments.
5. The code is hard to maintain
6. Was he allowed to use CPAN modules? A good Perl programmer would look at that option first.

Answer 4

Not only does the code suggest that the candidate doesn't really know Perl, but all those lines that say $line = substr ($line,1) are dreadful in any language. Try parsing a long line (say a few thousand fields) using that type of approach and you will see why. It just goes to show the sort of problem that Joel Spolsky discussed in this post.

Answer 5

His code is a little verbose. Perl is all about modules, and avoiding them makes your life hard. Here is an equivalent to what you posted that I wrote in about two minutes:

 #!/usr/bin/env perl

 use strict;
 use warnings;

 use Text::CSV;

 my $parser = Text::CSV->new({
     allow_whitespace   => 1,
     escape_char        => '\\',
     allow_loose_quotes => 1,
 });

 while(my $line = <>){
     $parser->parse($line) or die "Parse error: ". $parser->error_diag;
     my @row = $parser->fields;
     print $line;
     print "\t[$_]\n" for @row;
 }

Answer 6

Forgive this guy. I would not have dared to parse CSV with a regex even though it can be done.

The DFA in structured code is more obvious than the regex here and DFA -> regex translation is nontrivial and prone to stupid mistakes.