I legit had an interview once where he said
"Ok next question. Static variables...are they good or are they bad"

The funny thing is I can totally relate to working with someone who thinks static variables are bad but it's sad to see this is how far we have fallen.

Variables that start with the letter 'a' or 'i' are bad. Variables whose third character is a 'c' cost 5€ extra. Please send the money to suckd@ick.me

Thanx in advance

Legit question because it reveals a lot about the interviewee. The clueless answer is "dunno" or "good". The noob answer is "bad". The pro answer is describing what they do, when to use them, and what their potential pitfalls are.

Thats a legit question - in context.
Similar to:
Reflection - should we write everything with it? bad or good?

Functional programing - should we write a web file server with it? thoughts?

ML - should we call our glorified classifier, able to tell if there is a cat in a picture or not, A general purpose AI? evil, or good?

What language? Because that's also a factor in it

@Fast-Nop honestly only someone who hasn't used them would say bad...but these people make the rest of us suffer conversations on "the uses of static variables" when I'd plainly rather discuss anything remotely interesting instead

@pancakesengalnd it's because the majority of people who apply for a programming job can't actually code their way out of a wet paper bag: https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-c...

Questions like these are easy teasers to weed out suckers. Sadly, that's necessary.

Hell if I know.
You're asking Java questions of a Rails dev.