Hike Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

An Android photo viewing app with a list of images from disk, one taking half the screen.

• Use RecyclerView to display the list of images

• Use a custom adapter to bind the images to the RecyclerView

• Use a GridLayoutManager with span count of 2 to achieve the half-screen effect

• Load images from disk using a library like Glide or Picasso

• Implement click listeners to handle item selection and display the selected image

Given an array of natural numbers in random order, find the first missing natural number.

• Sort the array in ascending order

• Iterate through the sorted array and compare each element with its index

• If the element is not equal to its index + 1, return the missing number

• If all elements are in order, return the next natural number after the last element

To transfer the Ball object from one thread to another, we can use Handler or AsyncTask.

• Use Handler to post a Runnable to the main thread's message queue

• Use AsyncTask to perform background operations and update the UI on the main thread

• Pass the Ball object as a parameter or use a shared variable between threads

Looper/handlers allow passing objects between threads in Android.

• Looper is a message loop that runs in a thread and processes messages from a message queue.

• Handlers are used to send messages to the message queue of a looper.

• When an object is passed from one thread to another using a handler, it is encapsulated in a message and added to the receiving thread's message queue.

• The receiving thread's looper then processes th...read more

IPC (Inter-Process Communication) methods in Android allow communication between different processes.

• Binder: Android's native IPC mechanism, used for communication between processes.

• Intents: Used for communication between components within the same application or between different applications.

• Content Providers: Allow sharing data between applications using a common interface.

• Broadcasts: Used for asynchronous communica...read more

To create my own HashMap, I would use an array of linked lists to handle collisions and implement key-value pairs using a hash function.

• Create an array of linked lists to store the key-value pairs

• Implement a hash function to generate an index for each key

• Handle collisions by adding elements to the linked list at the corresponding index

• Support operations like put(key, value), get(key), and remove(key)

A weather app that displays images for different weather conditions, taking care of half downloaded images and minimizing data consumption.

• Implement image caching to store downloaded images locally

• Check if the image is already downloaded before making a network request

• Use a progress bar to indicate the download status of the image

• Handle cases where the download is interrupted or incomplete

• Implement a mechanism to resum...read more

To search for contacts with duplicate names or numbers, iterate through the list and compare each contact's name and number with the search term.

• Iterate through the list of contacts

• Compare the search term with each contact's name and number

• Return the contacts that match the search term

Launch mode determines how an activity is launched and how it behaves in the task stack.

• Standard: Creates a new instance of the activity on each launch.

• SingleTop: Reuses the existing instance if it's already at the top of the stack.

• SingleTask: Creates a new task and places the activity at the root of the task.

• SingleInstance: Creates a new task and places the activity as the only one in the task.

Deep linking in Android allows users to navigate directly to specific content within an app.

• Deep linking is achieved by defining intent filters in the app's manifest file.

• The intent filter specifies the URL scheme and host that the app can handle.

• When a deep link is clicked, Android checks if any app can handle the URL and prompts the user to choose.

• The chosen app receives the deep link data in the intent's data field.

• ...read more

Design a screen to show 10 nearest restaurants in a list with uninterrupted scrolling.

• Use a RecyclerView to display the list of restaurants

• Implement a custom adapter to populate the data in the list

• Use a location service to get the user's current location

• Sort the restaurants based on their distance from the user's location

• Load more restaurants as the user scrolls to the end of the list

ImageDownloader efficiently handles parallel API calls.

• Use a thread pool to manage parallel API calls.

• Implement caching to avoid redundant API calls.

• Use a priority queue to prioritize image downloads.

• Optimize network requests by using HTTP/2 or multiplexing.

• Consider using a library like Picasso or Glide for image loading and caching.