SQL Recursive CTE Interview Joke

The most bizarre coding interview I've ever done was at Facebook when as usual I asked a candidate to write in any language of their choice.. And they nonchalantly said "I'll write it in SQL", to which I almost let loose a chuckle until... -- Recursive CTE implementation of BFS WITH RECURSIVE bfs AS ( -- Base case: start from node 1 (can be parameterized) SELECT node_to as 1 as level CAST('1,' VARCHAR(1000)) as path FROM graph WHERE node_from = 1 UNION ALL NEXT

A screenshot of a humorous social media post shows a coding interview story followed by SQL code implementing breadth-first search with a large orange arrow labeled “NEXT.” The joke is that the candidate chooses SQL as their programming language and then demonstrates an unexpectedly elaborate recursive solution, making the interviewer’s skepticism turn into surprise.

• @dev_meme / 6395 2024-11-20