> I think you're actually filtering on people that are curious about the same things you are. Learning things because you're curious is pretty much a 'free-time' activity. Tech is huge, and with all the stuff to learn - I guarantee I'd learn algorithms and data structures over most other stuff...

You're right, by the very nature of asking questions that I can think up, I am filtering for a shared knowledge set... But that's kinda the point. There needs to be some shared knowledge set. The person I want to hire needs to be able to talk about more than just data structures. And, unless you've invented one of your own, to me, that seems nothing but rote memorization?

How many data structures have you memorized? 1 a week for the past 2 years? and in those last two years, you never used git enough to figure out how to rewrite a commit, nor have an opinion about if you should or shouldn't?

> That doesn't mean I don't like learn, just that I like to learn different stuff from you... As others have pointed out, its easy enough to check the docs for command line tools

again, for the same reason above, I can look up documentation myself, I don't want to hire someone really good at reading documentation, I need someone who can think, and solve new novel problems... Another of my favorite questions to ask is "what's the first thing you'd do once you found out you were living in a zombie apocalypse?" Nothing to do about tech, but it's a great question to dig into how someone thinks, and if they're able to solve problems they weren't expecting. Just like any interview question worth asking, there's no one right answer. Sure it's great you've memorized every single data structure that exists, and the list of uses that are approved in some text book. But I can read too, that's not impressive, and not a sign of someone who I'd enjoy working with.