I’ve composed 50 questions about Silverlight programming.
If tomorrow I’d have to hire a Silverlight Developer, these are the questions I’d ask the candidates.
1. Does Silverlight have a System.Console class? Why?
2. Enumerate the essential properties that have to be initialized for creating a Silverlight control using createSilverlight()
3. What is the name of the syntax notation used for the object properties in createSilverlight()?
4. Explain what happens (internally) when a user that doesn’t have the Silverlight runtime accesses a page that uses Silverlight controls.
5. What font name does Silverlight use when the font specified is not supported?
6. Does a font need to be installed on the server or on the client so that Silverlight can display it? Why?
7. Is it possible to load external OTF or TTF in Silverlight?
8. Explain the Path instructions in XAML
9. Do you have to specify a fixed size Canvas element to display it’s background color? Why?
10. Explain the resemblance between CSS and Silverlight, regarding overlapping objects.
11. What kind of Brushed does Silverlight support?
12. Explain Clipping
13. Explain the arguments for the addEventListener() method.
14. What types of functions can the event handler be?
15. Enumerate the five mouse event that Silverlight currently supports.
16. What is the difference between MouseLeftButtonDown and MouseLeftButtonUp in Silverlight?
17. What is the function used for removing an event listener?
18. How would you implement Drag-and-drop in Silverlight?
19. What are the properties of the eventArgs argument when capturing keyboard events?
20. Does Silverlight offer support for the Mac Option key?
21. What is the function used to get a reference to an object inside the Silverlight control, using it’s name?
22. Does the Silverlight keyboard event handling work in fullscreen mode?
23. What are the transformations that Silverlight supports for the elements?
24. What objects support tranformations?
25. Explain the steps needed to be performed in order to create an animation in XAML
26. Explain the meaning of Storyboard.TargetProperty
27. What are the animation types supported by Silverlight?
28. Explain the concept of KeyFrame. What is the difference between Silverlight and Flash regarding animations?
29. Explain how can an animation be controlled from JavaScript code.
30. What are the media formats currently supported by Silverlight?
31. Explain how can Silverlight use ASX files.
32. How could you determine the media position when playing a video in Silverlight?
33. What are the two ways of accessing the Silverlight control from JavaScript?
34. What are the three units of information that the Silverlight plug-in exposes to JavaScript?
35. How could you modify XAML content from JavaScript?
36. What are the necessary stept that need to be performed in order to download content from within Silverlight?
37. When developing Silverlight applications, when is it mandatory we use a web server? Why?
38. Eplain the reason why when downloading content within Silverlight the script should not use output buffering and should send the correct
Content-Length HTTP header.
39. What is the property of the downloader object that holds information about the progress.
40. What are the limitations of using external fonts?
41. What objects can the downloader class supports?
42. What ASP.NET control can embed XAML into ASP.NET pages?
43. Enumerate the dynamic programming languages that Silverlight 1.1 currently supports.
44. Does Silverlight supports database connectivity? Why?
45. What is the codec Silverlight supports for HD streaming?
46. How can IIS improve Silverlight Streaming?
47. How was Silverlight called before it was released?
48. Enumerate the browsers currently supported by Silverlight.
49. Explain how Silverlight Plug-in update works.
50. Explain SEO methods for Silverlight.
6 Comments
Are there really any companies hiring Silverlight developers?
Google it.
http://www.dotnetsolutions.ltd.uk/contact/recruitment/
http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/04/26/want-a-job-working-on-silverlight-at-microsoft.aspx
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=silverlight
So you’re looking for someone who is not necessarily capable of learning quickly or working in a team? Where do I sign?
Where did you get that idea from?
imho wrong approach to the problem of hiring a Silverlight Developer of tommorow. I’ve always had mixed feelings about pop quizes in interviews as a lot of the time people aren’t thinking clearly and the objective is for you to establish whether or not this person is going to be in your foxwhole when the going gets tough.
If someone lies about their skills, you’ll know within the first 2wks of hiring them (its easy to spot). The question is if they lied but are capable of doing the job in under a month and have a good background behind them, give them the shot.
I generally always ask people about what they are passionate about and in this case, Silverlight i’d be looking for a history of early adoption, someone whom isn’t afraid of something new and are willing to headbutt the monitor a few times.
Remember the Top 25% of developers in the world, don’t do the looking for jobs - the rest do. Here’s your chance to bump them into that 25% ;P
-
Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist
Microsoft.
(whom had to do the guantlet to be hired by Microsoft, man it was a tough interview process heh)
Thanks for the feedback!
I have some feelings regarding programming pop quizzes. Especially over the telephone.
To clarify a little bit the situation, I’m not looking to hire anybody. I’m an employee, not am employer :).
I’m a Silverlight early adopter, so I’m trying to make a general image of the technology to the people who just discovered it. And one of the methods is (in my opinion) one of these posts.
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