---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Technical Interview: Luc Ducazu'

---

# Technical Interview: Luc Ducazu

GitHub account?

## Background
- Ex-googler (Site Reliability Engineer; NetOps?)
- Fedora Scientific spin maintainer
- Former BITS trainer (Introduction to MySQL)
- Involved with BioLinux (website gone)
- Thanked specifically by several open source projects for volunteering (phylip, cd-hit)

From Christian Smet:
> I would like to make a recommendation for Luc: I admire his positive attitude.
> Always optimistic with a good spirit. Even on a Mondays!
> It would be good to share his secret with us.

## Technical
[Repl.it](https://replit.com/join/jlabykgsqi-maybejustjames)
The project we have in mind for you will probably involve some programming (in Python and shell).
You have endorsments for these on LinkedIn so hopefully you're comfortable with this?

1. Write a function to play FizzBuzz (`:: Int -> [Either String Int]`)
2. Re-write this function as a generator (using `yield`; advanced)

Assessment:
- Can they write the function?
- Do they test? (without prompting?)
- Do they write documentation? (without prompting?)

## Extended
- Do you have any thoughts on the removal of the GIL from CPython?

## Project specific
You are interesting for this project because of your background. The project involves
ingesting and processing large (terrabytes) of data into a database from many different
data sources over the internet (FTP, HTTP). Data sources change
and so do data formats so failures are expected and must be early, visible, and inspectable.
The system must also be easy to maintain and require as little intervention (maximally automated)
as reasonably possible.
Do you have any thoughts on how you would build such a system?

### Notes for questions
- Apache Kafka has been soft rejected as a technology by James for being too complex