Programming without compiler. Help please

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So I have one or more technical interview wich will involve programming in a text document ( with people watching. ) I assume I won't have the ability to use a compiler, though I haven't had a technical interview before, so I'm not sure.

Anyways ; when I program I tend to write a little code then test it and fix mistakes ( if there are any. ) So I feel I need to compile often to make sure what I've done so far is good. But how to deal with not being able to do this? Anyone got any advice? I'm quite confident I can at least come up with as solution, but I make so many silly mistakes.

Anyone here have gone through technical interviews? How was it? Did you get any help during the interview?

Any help or advice would be immensely appreciated as I really want to succeed in this interview.

I don't see how their gonna have you program without a compiler, unless they are wanting you to enter machine level instruction into the machine. The last time I did that was 30 years ago and that was on a commodore 64. O what fun days those where.

Another thing they may be doing is seeing how well you know how to program on the first try without using the compiler to correct your mistakes. This is an important test as they are evaluating your programming skills. just make sure you close your brackets and don't forget those nasty semi-Collins. Those little bastards will burn you every time.

Why in the hell are they asking you to do programming work in front of a bunch of people watching you, especially when you are on the spectrum. If someone put me in that environment, I would die of a f***ing aneurysm and even if I didn't, I would be so distracted that I could never get anything done.

Last edited by LupaLuna on 25 Jun 2014, 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, it's a technical interview. I'll be writing my code in a shared document. I just assume I wouldn't be allowed to compile it because that would be "cheating." Did you have a technical interview before you got your job? Do you know how technical interviews are usually done?

I know I will have to do whiteboard programming in front of people at some point. Now THAT will be horrible. I dread doing that, but I also REALLY want to nail this job, so I'll at least give it a shot.

At least I know the company gives sane tasks. Not like "implement quick sort in low level C without recursion with a worst case complexity of O( n * log n )"

I have never had to do a "LIVE" technical interview before. Thank God. But I have been tested before and have had to bring my work in for interview/review. I would be told to do something on my own and then bring it in for review.

Yeah, that seems friendlier. But I can kinda understand the point of doing it live. That way, the people who are interviewing you get a sense of how you tackle problems. And the guys conducting the interview are usually quite friendly and helpful. I also think they are used to dealing with people who struggle with these things.

But I wanna know, is what I do what most people do? Write a little code and then compile it very often? Or do people tend to write a lot before testing? I feel I have to do this because I make many stupid mistakes.

The way I do it is I like to make small code(modules) then compile them often to check for errors. But I don't just check to see if the compiler likes it. I also check it for proper functionality as well. I have some custom debugging programs I use to test my code with. Once I am satisfied with the module. Then I build it up from there.

It sounds like to me that you think that they want you to write a whole program without using a compiler to check it on the way. I don't see how they can expect you to get it right the first time. Even with my years of experience, I still can't write a page of code and get it right the first time and I don't know of anybody who can ether.

Yeah, this is what I mean. I often make silly mistakes like < instead of > even when it's clear that I want >. Glad to see that others do it the same way as me.


Not an entire program. I watched a video of this. The example task was something like this : "given a string of characters and a library for parsing strings, find possible English words"


Yeah, if my program runs entirely as intended the first time, my brain goes "okay, this is scary. There's bound to be a bug in here somewhere!" Though I notice I'm getting better at making things work the first time.

I don't think they expect me to write it fully functional. But at the same time, making a lot of small mistakes will definitely be a negative thing.

Maybe I'm just overly nervous about the interview because I'm afraid I'm not good enough... Part of me wants to quit, but I really want this job so I won't let myself quit.

I don't blame you for being nervous. especially since this is your first time doing this. BTW: Don't quit, never quit. As I would say. You may fail, you may lose. But never let it be because you gave up.

Yeah, I won't let this opportunity slip between my finger. Thanks for your advice

So I had a technical telephone interview today. I couldn't use a computer simply because there was no time.

Kinda rushed through the first questions without asking questions to cover the corner casesMy first solution was O( n^2 ), but my final one was O( n ). I think this was a warm up question though. )

Second question went reasonably OK. I gave a solution I think would work, but I made an error in the implementation ( this would have been revealed by compiling it, though )

Third question I'm not sure about. I was asked to refine my solution several times, seeing if there was any other / better way or data structure. I could use to solve the problem.

I think I answered most questions about running times okay too. And I think I demonstrated that I know a bit about data structures and algorithms. But yeah... I'm really unsure and anxious to hear how I did.

I got the feedback today. As I feared, I didn't get the job. And for the same reasons I feared.

One of the questions involved finding elements in a binary search tree. I had the general idea of how to do it recursively, but I couldn't remember the exact order I would have to do it in. I didn't have the time to compile, and I wasn't fully prepared to step through the code in my help. So I ended up doing things in the wrong order, failing the question.

After the interview, I did this on paper. I took some time to step through the code in my head. Then I typed it on my computer and compiled it. Looking away from mistakes involving not setting the binary tree up correctly ( which wasn't part of the original question ), it worked perfectly.

I wonder ; is this harder for aspies? For me, it's almost too hard writing code, checking it while nervously talking to the interviewer.