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I had an interview and interviewer told me to improve on the concepts.

E.G.:

  • He asked me types of arrays are there and I answered that there was two types of array: A simple array and an associative array.
  • He also asked me why we use PDO and I answered we can use any database, E.G. Oracle and MySQL and it helps with SQL injection. He then asked me how it helps with SQL injection and I was told I didn't give the correct answer.
  • He asked me about persistent connections and told him I just used mysql_pconnect. I don't know where it will be used and how.

Is there is any standard way I can follow to help me improve upon these concepts?

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I have edited the question to hopefully make it more clear. If I have incorrectly interrupted anything, you can edit the question to fix it. – Dan McGrath Jan 16 '11 at 11:05
@Dan McGrath: You meant "If I have incorrectly interpreted..."? – Programming Enthusiast Jan 16 '11 at 11:24
1  
Haha. :(. That is correct. Where I managed to pull interrupted from is anyone's guess... – Dan McGrath Jan 16 '11 at 11:28
@Dan thanks for correcting grammer , want to improve my grammer :) – WebDev Jan 16 '11 at 13:25
I'd have failed on the first question - I know what an associative array is, of course, but I wouldn't have thought of that term as I don't think of it as an array. I'd have said something like "low-level fixed-size arrays or array-like library classes such as vectors". To me, key-to-data mappings aren't (normally) arrays in either the data structure or abstract data type sense. That's a major reason why I don't like Lua - the attempt to combine the array abstraction with the key-to-data mapping abstraction is IMO not just broken, but impossible to fix. – Steve314 Jan 16 '11 at 19:40

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I think the interviewer is asking you to improve your understanding of some the basic concepts.

Write down a list of topics such as those he asked about in the interview

  • Data types/structures
  • Handling Databases
  • Security (SQL Injection)
  • etc

Now go an research them. Not just how, but try and understand why it is done in a particular way, or why something is not done.

StackOverflow has a great deal of these answers, if you can sift through the noise. Looking at Wikipedia and material published on University websites is also a good idea. Even going the old school method and grabbing some highly recommended text books is advisable! You'll find plenty of questions here and at SO for recommended books. :)

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+1 - This would be my take. He's not questioning what you'd do, it just sounds like he's not convinced you fully understand why that's the right thing to do other than it being the way you've always done it. – Jon Hopkins Jan 16 '11 at 13:16
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i think that its really must for a person to read books for details . we go through all these blogs and forums but real details are in the book.We basically forget about books because we are so busy and want the things quickly. You must have heard and read on the blogs that great MVP speakers always emphasizes on reading from books.

I think that reading a good book of your language will help you get you through any interview.

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