Most popular Java Interviews Questions - A gavel, which most experienced java programmers resort to.

“Most popular Java Questions” - A gavel, which most experienced java programmers resort to.
A set of simple questions, that are essentially useless, but the programming giants love to harp on these!! My verdict? I detest these futile questions!!

The last 3 months, witnessed me walk in and out of multiple interviews.  I won’t be exaggerating if I said I found myself facing an interview at least twice a month.  I maybe wrong and maybe I haven’t gained enough life experience when compared to these “programming giants”, but in spite of all my limitations, I deem these questions annoying, useless and jaded.

Now for all the freshers out there eagerly waiting to ace an interview, and expedite their career goals, I would like to reveal these tried and tested questions. Don’t expect me to answer these questions here though. I assure you an uncomplicated Google search would be sufficient for the answers. But you aren’t at liberty to assume that I am shying away from it because I don’t know the answers. I am just a little sluggish "after having been too acquainted with them and also I admire innovation and novelty. I crave to associate with ‘out of the box’ thinkers, progressive technologies and ideas.


1. Difference between == and .equals ()
            (This question has been thrown my way 7 times, but I haven’t graced it with an answer yet. Because this question always confounds me, and I end up blurting out a different answer each time and it fails to convince the interviewer. Just my luck!!)


2. What is polymorphism, encapsulation, etc that can be summed up as “blah blah blah”!!


3. Difference between interface and abstract class

4. Access modifiers

5. A question that seems to feature quite often is “write a hello world program”
(Now I believe at this point the interviewer is exhausted and questioning my decision to attend this interview. They might even be speculating if I am insulting them. To brush aside all such conjectures and also because I do not intend to lie to you…. I absolutely don’t bother about this clichéd theoretical jargon. I simply refuse to recite these like a trained parrot, just to impress an interviewer who uses this as a yardstick to measure my worth)

Fair warning!!! The aforesaid is often followed by these: What is all these key words like public, static,args. Why main method is static and so on.

6. Some of these interviewers ventured into a different territory and questioned me on collection frameworks. I must admit, these questions were quite impressive unlike the mind-numbing ones I already mentioned. I will give you a peek into these too:

What is list, set, map and combinations of hash, linked, map of these?

This may seem pointless to you, but I swear by them that I make use of them on a day to day basis. Each one of them has proved themselves very valuable and I am very familiar with them. So I welcome questions from collection frameworks.

Now all this may bring you down and you may find yourself encircled by negativity. I don’t want you to go down that path, so I am going to be generous and share with you the lessons I gathered from my interview marathon.
All of us are nervous during an interview. Even the interviewer who seems to have it altogether is secretly a bundle of nerves.

Minute before the interview they Google a bunch of queries online and then mark the search results, and expect the interviewee to thread these familiar grounds.  At the risk of repeating an all too familiar advice, “Make eye contact”. This would not only make you feel in control, but also provides you an insight into your Interviewer.