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"Strings are sequences of characters" or sth. like that.

It's a grab bag, tell-me-something-interesting icebreaker question. I'm looking for some evidence of the fact that you can differentiate the two in some meaningful way.

Not intended to be a gotcha question! Just a quick test of basic CS knowledge to get the candidate comfortable.

> Just a quick test of basic CS knowledge to get the candidate comfortable.

did it work for that purpose?

Not this time!

But for every candidate that could answer, I think so.

oh ok, I tend to overthink irrelevant questions in interviews

There’s nothing irrelevant about measuring someone’s technical understanding of the very basics at the same time that you gauge their ability to have a conversation about the domain.

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