Amen to that.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I'm doing -- one potential interview requires a code test -- it's hard, too...well, I mean, I knew the answers as soon as I saw the questions, but it's enough code that it's going to take a while to code it all up, and hence I'll be using the exercise as a refresh on Java as I go (I was actually quite good back then -- wrote a recursive and reflection-based generic object debugger just for the fun of it). It's actually been kind of fun. The first exercise I did I got working with only two bugs (I.E. on the 3rd iteration).
But she made it sound like it was some sort of CAD tool or something -- I honestly didn't even understand the question, from a coder's perspective -- I mean, beyond an editor and an IDE and knowing the libraries that are out there (and how to look up the ones that one doesn't know are out there), what else is there? She made it sound like there was, in the scientific modelling arena. I think I'm going to get back to my recruiter and just ask him to ask them -- from the perspective of, if I want to get into this field, I do want to learn the software in the area, and see if it's a freeware tool or something that I can look up. I'm going to kill myself stab myself in the thigh if she said Mathematica or something and I just didn't hear her because I was on a fucking cell phone.