Progress development quiz - wanted!

aderegil

New Member
Hello,

I will interview some developers in order to fill a couple of seats on our team. We need them to be able to read Progress 8.3b code and maintain it and also develop new code.

I ask your help in order to identify or design a simple QUIZ with maybe 20 or 30 questions about Progress development. I would like to apply that quiz to this candidates.

Please take a look at this quizzes from W3Schools.com, that's exactly the type of quiz I want to develop:
http://www.w3schools.com/quiztest/quiztest.asp?qtest=JavaScript
http://www.w3schools.com/quiztest/quiztest.asp?qtest=SQL

Does anybody from the forum know about an existing Progress quiz?

Is anybody interested in helping me develop a quiz like that?

Thanks!
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
IMHO

1) How do you spell "Progress"?

If they get it wrong move on to the next candidate.

If they spell it right you aren't going to get anything more meaningful from a quiz -- your time would be better spent on education and training. But if you want to confirm that they aren't complete bozos you could try asking them to find the definition of some obscure 4GL verb like "GO-PENDING". If it takes them more than 5 minutes to find it on progress.com and show it to you move on to the next candidate.
 
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tamhas

ProgressTalk.com Sponsor
Given code of that vintage, are you going to be hiring dinosaurs?

Seriously, though, unless you have a need for hit the ground running experts ... in which case I would consider consultants ... people are often overly concerned about prior ABL knowledge. Your hiring pool will be much bigger if you simply look for someone who understands relational concepts and has good understanding of algorithms and exposure to the business problems ... and then train them. In a couple of months, underlying talent will be more important than prior experience.
 

Elod

New Member
Hi,

Here are some questions, you can use them as inspiration.

Cheers.
 

Attachments

  • ProgressQuiz.zip
    30.9 KB · Views: 56

aderegil

New Member
TomBascom:

I thank you for your time and your message.

We are looking for people that has experience with Progress development and we see a quiz as a good tool for our purpouses. That quiz will not be the only tool that we will use. A good interview will be also an important tool in our process.

Once again, thanks for your comments.
 

aderegil

New Member
Hello tamhas:

Thank you for your reply. We cannot train people in Progress or invest time on that, we need them to be proficient on the platform already. Before asking for Progress knowledge we of course are looking for excelent developer skills. We are looking for good developers that also have experience with Progress platform. Unfortunely we have a huge legacy system that is not going to die anytime soon and that is why we need 8.3 developers. They will write 8.3 code and they will later upgrade the system to current versions.

At this time what I need is a quiz to assess Progress development knowledge.
 

tamhas

ProgressTalk.com Sponsor
One of the big obstacles that I think you are likely to face in hiring is that there is going to be a perception that going to work on an 8.3 system is a dead end job ... a bit like taking a COBOL job. If people have that perception, the best are not likely to apply, even if you are paying generously because there will not be a perception that the position will lead anywhere. I've known people for whom location was a very strong factor in their consideration and you might be lucky enough to get a good one of those in the neighborhood, but the task will still be harder.

Whereas, chances are you can take your existing system and compile and go on 10.2B. Even if you have only done this on the development machine, it projects a very different image, especially if coupled with plans for what you are going to do with the system going forward.

Moreover, if you make those plans, you might easily find that you have a different mix of talents that you want in your recruits. Perhaps a different UI technology? Perhaps an architectural shift? AppServer, Sonic, supply chain integration, BPM, all kinds of possibilities. Create an exciting roadmap and you will both know better where you want to go and what kind of talent you need to get there ... as well as making it seem like a potentially exciting place to work where new and interesting challenges are coming. Doesn't mean there isn't some maintenance stuff to do ... everyone has that ... but the possibility to learn and expand is very different from the prospect of stuck in 1999 forever.

If this interests you, drop me a line ... I help people develop such plans and then figure out how to implement them.
 

Elod

New Member
That would defy the purpose of a quiz.

If you are the one to put the questions: you should know the answers, on the other hand if you are to answer them and you have the answers, that's just cheating.
 
Hi, anyone has answers to the quiz from ProgressQuiz.zip that was attached quite a number of years ago? Thanks.
Or, are there any similar new progress quiz that I can get hold of please?
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
You will get more value out of posting your answers and asking for feedback. I suggest a new thread per question. It might actually be kind of fun.
 
That'd be fun indeed, but would find it awkard to get it wrong, but maybe worth a try!

Qn 1. Enumerate the layers of a 3-tier application:
Ans: Presentation/Application Layer, Business Logic Layer and Data Layer

Qn 2. What are (some of) the PROPATH's characteristics (check the appropriate entries)?

1. it is an OS environment variable -yes
2. .r files are automatically searched on the file system only in the folders specified (and in that order) - YES
3. it is read-only throughout a Progress session - NO
4. it stores a (comma-separated) list of folders - YES
5. you cannot call a Progress source located outside the folders listed in PROPATH - YES
6. between sessions, PROPATH is stored in the .ini file - NO
Qn3: Enumerate the main components of a database:
Ans: Fields, Tables, Index, Sequence

Qn4: What is a foreign key.
Ans: Well, I understand, but to give a defintion in the forum, I cheated a bit and here is the precise answer! I would not have worded like this though!

A foreign key is a column that references a primary key of another table. The foreign key value either is NULL or exists as the primary key value. The table that contains the foreign key is called the referencing table. The table that contains the primary key is called the referenced table.

Qn5: Enumerate the database-events that fire a trigger:
Ans: Create, Delete, Find, Write

These are the first 5 out of 30 questions! Feedback please!
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
Honestly... a new thread would be a really good idea.

Also: IMHO it is not cheating to look at the documentation. In a real world setting if you refuse to read the docs and make a mistake that could have been avoided by checking the docs I would fire you.
 
Qn6: Define a variable to store this value: 03/02/2005 09:05:46.359
Answer?

I think it must use some form of DATETIME or DATETIME-TZ, but don't know how!

Qns 7 and 8 are skipped.

Qn9: Can a database trigger be run (Y/N)?
Ans: NO

Qn 10:Enumerate the three Progress 4GL statements that define blocks:
Ans: DO, DO WHILE, FOR EACH, REPEAT

Qn 11: What will be the output of the following Progress code:


calling procedureinclude called

&scoped-define aaa outer
display "Before include call: " "{&aaa}" skip.
{include1.i &aaa="include"}.
display "After include call: " "{&aaa}".

display "Within include: " "{&aaa}" SKIP.

ANS:
Before include call: outer
Within include: .include.
After include call: .outer

Qn 12: Describe the ways to pass parameters to an include file:
Ans: Arguments, Pre-processors
 

TomBascom

Curmudgeon
Q1: Layers.... that's what I would say.

Q2.1: That depends. On UNIX it is. On Windows it comes from the registry or the INI file.

Q2.2: I agree.

Q2.3: Ditto.

Q2.4: Agreed.

Q2.5: Sure you can. But you are responsible for specifying the path. i.e. run /a/b/c.p. or run ./a.p

Q2.6: See 2.1

Q3: Or on disk, in memory and in the transaction logs. Or data, before image, and after image. Or control area, schema area and data areas. I don't know what this question is asking. I don't like it. It is not at all clear.

Q4: "Something that Progress databases don't support" :)

Q5: You missed one - ASSIGN triggers.
 
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