Dug this up from an old CD archive. As strange as it looks these days, this document, a short cover letter and an hour's interview with Peter Molyneux (we talked about Isaac Asimov and Edward de Bono, ISTR) got me into the games industry. And yet my old CV is a little familiar: I still get CVs like this on my desk today from student hopefuls who think, as I once did, that a course in lambda calculus is worth mentioning in a CV. Well I suppose you have to fill the space somehow…
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Computing Skills:
I am familiar with MS-DOS, Windows, Unix (Linux, DEC Ultrix, Solaris (Posix)).
I am fluent in C, Modula-3, and BASIC (including Visual Basic), and have also written programs in C++, Pascal, Fortran 77, and 80×86 assembly language. My degree course additionally covers several non-imperative languages.
Education:
10 GCSE's at grade A:
English Language, Physics
English Literature, Chemistry
French, Maths (Pure & Applied)
Latin, Technology
German, Religious Studies
1 AS-level, at grade A: French
3 A-levels, at grade A:
Maths, Physics, Electronic Systems
Sixth Term Examination Papers:
(S-level equivalents)
Maths – grade 2
Physics – grade 3
Degree course results so far:
Part 1A & Part 1B: 2:2
Previous Employment:
I worked for 16 weeks as Technical Assistant for Datasure, a software house in London that produces financial advice software. I wrote manuals and tutorials for their two main products, and assisted in handling customer questions, complaints and orders. Cut-down versions of the tutorials were also released as demos, for which I also provided telephone support. I also assisted in tracing and fixing bugs in a product under development.
Degree Course Content:
C, Modula-3, ML, Prolog and Fortran, language semantics and compilation.
Computer and processor architecture, digital electronics and VLSI design.
Operating systems, distributed computing and concurrent systems.
Digital communication, information theory and coding.
Numerical analysis, graphics, databases, cryptology and security, user interface design.
Systems modelling, software engineering, hardware and software specification.
Computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, natural language processing.
Concurrency, complexity and type theory, lambda calculus and computation theory.
Philosophy, historical computing, professional practice and ethics, running a business.
My second year group project (running under Unix/X and written in Modula-3) was a graphical city centre traffic simulator. My third year project (also running under Unix/X and being written in Modula-3) is a graphing and numerical analysis package.
In the first year of the course I also studied maths and physics.
Interests:
I enjoy all types of music, reading science fiction and playing the piano, especially ragtime. In my spare time I also go ballroom dancing, play the harmonica, and play table-tennis and tennis when I can. I play tiddlywinks too: I have played for Cambridge against Oxford for three years running, and have been university singles champion.
A tiddlywinks champ for Cambridge?? /swoon You stud you!
(http://livejournal.com/users/sylvene)
Next time you get an applicant who thinks it worth mentioning lambda calculus on their CV, send them my way! All we get is students who think that sleeping through 2 hours of C++ lectures qualifies them as 'expert C++ programmer'.
(http://livejournal.com/users/arielerilrondil)
Ah yes, I usually ask people how they would rate their C++ on scale of 0 (my grandma) to 10 (Bjarne S, Scott M, Herb S, etc). I've never got an answer less than 7.
I also have a C++ test I sometimes use – basically “point out all the bugs/wrongnesses in this code”. AFAIK* it has 17 different issues: some are bugs the compiler would warn about, some would cause a runtime crash and be instantly apparent, and some are more subtle. Likewise some are a gimme if you've read any C++ books (e.g. every candidate should know by now about virtual destructors). Most candidates get 6 or 7 out of 17. A very few get over 10. Weak candidates get 2 or 3.
* I say this because there may be more to be discovered. It doesn't compile, of course, so I have no way to know exactly how many errors there are, but I think by now I've spotted and/or discussed them all. 2 were typos, but they produce interesting results so I left them in!
(http://livejournal.com/users/elbeno)