sleeping through the technical interview

Signed-off-by: Xe <me@christine.website>

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+---
+title: Sleeping Through the Technical Interview
+date: 2022-09-14
+author: sephiraloveboo
+tags:
+ - haskell
+ - parable
+---
+
+<xeblog-hero ai="Waifu Diffusion v1.2" file="hacker-nest" prompt="アニメ, hacker's battlestation, desktop computer with three screens, split keyboard, green text on black background, a cup of coffee, Haskell, by greg rutkowski and artgerm"></xeblog-hero>
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">Based on at least two true
+stories. With apologies to Aphyr, I love your blog and your x-ing the technical
+interview parables have been a huge influence on me.</xeblog-conv>
+
+The formless void that stalks all dreams was different today, but not in a way
+that you could easily identify. The endless stillness of change had a different
+flavor to it. There was a pulse to it, something you couldn't quite identify.
+Thoughts and feelings encircle it before they are dismissed as irrelevant,
+leading to another level of stillness.
+
+Thoughts resume, thoughts of the rent, and the bills, and all of those
+irrelevancies that everyone in this world loves to spend so much time on.
+
+The pulse resumes with a new pattern: `.-- .- -.- . / ..- .--.` You look down at
+your wrist and the wakefulness charm is no longer present. Things make sense
+now. This is a dream. A very boring one, but a dream at that. You thank the
+dream for its service and make your exit: stage right.
+
+---
+
+A watch was vibrating. It is the morning. You don't usually wake up in the
+morning. You take a moment to search your memories for what was significant
+about today. As if on cue, the watch taps you again and shows a few rows of
+sigils that remind you. 
+
+After freshening up, you set off to make the arduous commute to the office.
+After 30 whole seconds you manage to finish your epic trek and sit in your
+custom-rigged office chair. It was a bit of a gambiarra, but it was the only
+thing that could properly tolerate your tail and dorsal fin. After a struggle,
+you got your tail fit into the place it's comfortable in. _The dark side of
+being a one-of-a-kind creature_, you thought.
+
+Firefox was out of date, the workstation said. So the scripts dutifully went off
+and rebuilt it. Seconds later, a new version was running as it was compiling.
+Hopefully the important parts would be done in time for the call.
+
+_Thank the nine_, you thought. They used E100 meet. Or was it E100 hangouts.
+Maybe E100 Allo or Duo? Depended on who wanted a raise that year. The thought
+made you smile and you hit a button to turn on the key lights for the camera. 
+
+The screen showed a man in his mid-twenties staring at his screen. He looked
+well-fed, as these startup types tend to be.
+
+"Hey, I'm Jeff with Techaro and I'm going to be your first interviewer today. So
+that we can get things off on the right foot, you're 'Pa-lie-ma' right?"
+
+The insult that this "Jeff" had just committed was beyond statement. Holding
+back and dismissing the emotion out of his understandable ignorance, you
+replied: "It's Palima (Pa-lee-mah), Palima Aethera (Pa-lee-mah Ay-theer-ah)."
+
+"Ah yes, sorry. I'll write that down in my notes so that everyone else gets it
+right. I try very hard to at least give people the courtesy of saying their name
+correctly." His candor appears genuine. He is wearing an orange company branded
+hoodie. Orange was a good color on him, made him look happy. You like this
+"Jeff" and want to see what he can do.
+
+"Before we get started, are you using some kind of virtual avatar? We like our
+interviews to be done with people's real faces."
+
+*Ah, another one of _those_ types*, you thought to yourself. This is a common
+accusation you have learned to accept from working with these "humans". They
+tend to not like it when you violate their social norms on appearances. You
+hesitate for a moment for a witty reply to manifest itself and reply: "This is
+my real face. It's a long story I'd rather not get into now."
+
+The magick took root and the "Jeff" stopped thinking about it. He continued. "Is
+there anything you want to know about Techaro or the position we're looking to
+fill?"
+
+You already knew everything from the words, both written and unwritten in the
+job description. Their infrastructure was in chaos. They needed a hero. You saw
+yourself as an apt standin for said hero.
+
+"No, I think I got the gist from the description."
+
+"So, Palima, what can you tell me about your background?"
+
+_Oh, where to begin?_ you thought. "I have extensive experience in crafting
+digital automatons into existence and then setting them off into the world to
+get my goals done. I have worked at large companies such as MovieFlix where I
+helped create the infrastructure background for one morbillion concurrent
+streams of popular movies and TV shows. I have also worked on a lot of projects
+that I can't talk about, but you are benefitting from at least three of them
+right now. I am looking at joining a smaller company so that I can know everyone
+at a more personal level. Being an anonymous cog in the machine is only
+appealing for _so long_."
+
+The "Jeff" grew a curious expression across his face. He looks like he just
+found a unicorn, albeit one with a serious addiction to cold brew. *La trinkajxo
+de la dioj.* He continued: "Wow, what's one of your favorite infrastructure
+projects you've worked on?"
+
+"Probably the one where we benchmarked a bunch of OS kernels in order to figure
+out which one would work best for the MovieFlix backend. I was personally hoping
+Linux would win, but we ended up choosing FreeBSD after `epoll(7)` ended up
+making things run faster. We were all surprised by this. I think I still have a
+commit bit to FreeBSD."
+
+The man looked shocked. You were winning. Now to see what other fun this "Jeff"
+would bring.
+
+"Okay, this is mostly a formality, but I'd like to do a little live coding. You
+sound like you have the kind of background we are looking for here at Techaro,
+but we need to do this coding challenge just to be sure everyone's on the same
+playing field. That sound okay with you?"
+
+You nod. "Jeff" was about to have fun.
+
+"Okay, I'm gonna send you a link to this website and it's gonna have a little
+sorting challenge. There's an array of numbers here and I want you to sort them
+and explain how the sort works."
+
+"What language should I do it in?"
+
+"Any language is fine really"
+
+He made a mistake. Move quickly, before he takes it back.
+
+```haskell
+import Control.Concurrent
+import Control.Monad
+import System.Environment
+
+sort values = do
+    chan <- newChan
+    forM_ values (\time -> forkIO $ threadDelay (100000 * time) >> writeChan chan time)
+    forM_ values (\_ -> readChan chan >>= print)
+    
+main = getArgs >>= sort . map read
+```
+
+"...what is this doing?"
+
+"Sorting the numbers in constant time. It is the algorithmically fastest sort I
+know, and it is my favorite sorting algorithm."
+
+"...how though? I don't see any comparisons?"
+
+"You don't need to compare numbers to sort them. Sometimes all it takes is some
+rest. Run it, it will work."
+
+The "Jeff" looked like he had seen a ghost. Maybe his house was haunted. It is
+more common than you think. So many ghosts wandering around these days.
+
+You heard a few keyboard strokes and then an enter key. His facial expressions
+changed and then he looked flabbergasted.
+
+"...S.So how does this work per se? I've never seen anyone sort anything like this."
+
+"This is sleepsort. It is the only constant time sorting algorithm I know of.
+The way it works is that it spawns a separate green thread for every number you
+want to sort, then delays that thread for that value times one hundred thousand
+microseconds. This will sort the numbers."
+
+"How is that constant time though? Doesn't the amount of time it takes depend on
+the inputs?"
+
+You smile, he has fallen for your trap. "Time complexity does not bother itself
+with mere side effects like time. All you need is to sleep a little. Things will
+resolve themselves. It is inevitable."
+
+"Jeff" froze in place. At first you thought he was shocked a bit _too_ much.
+Then you checked in, just to be sure. Being shocked like that could ruin his
+lovely, mild sunburnt complexion. "You still there?"
+
+"Yeah, I'm here. I've just never seen that before. It's a very...inventive
+sorting algorithm. How would you optimize it?"
+
+In a flash, one line of code is changed:
+
+```diff
+-forM_ values (\time -> forkIO $ threadDelay (100000 * time) >> writeChan chan time)
++forM_ values (\time -> forkIO $ threadDelay (10000 * time) >> writeChan chan time)
+```
+
+"It is now ten times faster."
+
+At this point "Jeff" could not hold it back any more and started to laugh. He
+cut loose and laughed the kind of laugh that you only see in a man who has lost
+it. You worried for the "Jeff". He looked pale.
+
+"Why did you use such a weird sorting algorithm?"
+
+"Why did you use such a werid question?"
+
+After settling down he made an expression you knew all too well. You were too
+powerful, you could not be contained there. The "Techaro" was not complicated
+enough. You would just have to struggle through the meatgrinder of Kubernetes
+even though they would have been fine with a single dedicated server in Typhoon
+Digital. There was a spare development board in your closet that would be fine
+even.
+
+You would be done too quickly. It would not be a worthy challeng. You finished
+the call and took another sip of your cold brew. The rejection email was
+immenent. You knew it couldn't come to pass. 
+
+Locking the battlestation and unplugging the unlock key, you slink back to your
+precious haven. Entombing yourself in the blankets was the safest option.
+
+Before the sweet bliss of nonexistence kissed your face again, there was another
+tap on the wrist. They had already emailed back. Against all odds, they wanted
+to hire you. For a significant amount of money, enough to make it worth whatever
+trash fire you would endure there. You wondered if they knew what they were
+getting into. You decided to sleep on it, things would surely sort themselves
+out in the evening.