This is a fairly limited point of view. For starters, you need to realize that the candidate is probably interviewing for more companies and having more offers. If the offers are similar enough, I might end up making a decision based on which source control you use or on whether you use libraries I don't like or not.
But also, those questions are very useful to know what working for the company might be like. For example, my perception of the company depending on some answers:
- You don't use source control: the company doesn't really care about the development process. Very likely to be missing other development tools, and my job is going to be harder than it needs to be.
- You use Subversion: A signal that the company might be stagnated on legacy practices, systems and tools.
- You don't use OSS libs: the company tends to reinvent the wheel. Unless there's a good reason, looks like I am going to fight internal teams for getting standard features to the shared libraries, and my job is going to be harder because it looks like the process to get already-written code onto the company codebase is hard or even impossible.
Those signals are going to go into my decision process. Maybe not a dealbreaker, but might make a difference when comparing to other offers.
And yes, when people have asked me those things, I've been happy to respond. In fact, it shows me that they know what they want and probably have experience in those tools and the advantages/drawbacks of each approach.
But also, those questions are very useful to know what working for the company might be like. For example, my perception of the company depending on some answers:
- You don't use source control: the company doesn't really care about the development process. Very likely to be missing other development tools, and my job is going to be harder than it needs to be.
- You use Subversion: A signal that the company might be stagnated on legacy practices, systems and tools.
- You don't use OSS libs: the company tends to reinvent the wheel. Unless there's a good reason, looks like I am going to fight internal teams for getting standard features to the shared libraries, and my job is going to be harder because it looks like the process to get already-written code onto the company codebase is hard or even impossible.
Those signals are going to go into my decision process. Maybe not a dealbreaker, but might make a difference when comparing to other offers.
And yes, when people have asked me those things, I've been happy to respond. In fact, it shows me that they know what they want and probably have experience in those tools and the advantages/drawbacks of each approach.