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database queries
Apr. 8th, 2005 11:09 amPop quiz:
Q. 1.: There exists an external database, accessible by WWW, which can either display results 20-at-a-time on a web page or output a well-formed XML document containing all results. Your employer wants to record the results of queries which produces several thousand hits. Do you
Q. 2.: If you answered (a.) above for some brain-damaged reason, do you at least have SOME clue about why it may reflect poorly on your competence?
Q. 2. ii. (extra credit): Will you consider, please, that you are doing the equivalent of fixing an automobile engine with a roll of duct tape and some bubble gum?
Q. 3.: Will either choice in Q. 1. have any effect on your employability?
Q. 4. (extra credit): Is the ability to perform the task by the means described in choice (a.) of Q. 1. a "theoretical and practical application of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education"?
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A. 1.: The correct answer is (b.).
A. 2.: Answers may vary.
A. 3.: Apparently not.
A. 4.: Apparently so.
Q. 1.: There exists an external database, accessible by WWW, which can either display results 20-at-a-time on a web page or output a well-formed XML document containing all results. Your employer wants to record the results of queries which produces several thousand hits. Do you
a. write some hack VBscript to scrub the HTML output page-by-page with the user page-feeding interactively?
b. write a script/application to grab and parse the XML document using a well-documented package/library/module, in a high-level language suited, by tradition or, preferably, technical correctness, to the problem domain?
Q. 2.: If you answered (a.) above for some brain-damaged reason, do you at least have SOME clue about why it may reflect poorly on your competence?
Q. 2. ii. (extra credit): Will you consider, please, that you are doing the equivalent of fixing an automobile engine with a roll of duct tape and some bubble gum?
Q. 3.: Will either choice in Q. 1. have any effect on your employability?
Q. 4. (extra credit): Is the ability to perform the task by the means described in choice (a.) of Q. 1. a "theoretical and practical application of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education"?
-----
A. 1.: The correct answer is (b.).
A. 2.: Answers may vary.
A. 3.: Apparently not.
A. 4.: Apparently so.
