> What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years
That depends on what you mean by "state of the art".
If you mean the cutting edge of computer science research, then it might not even appear in the mainstream in the next 20 years. For example, type inference was invented in 1982, and 25 years later a very limited version of it entered the mainstream in C# 3.0. Heck, some people even consider lambdas innovative, even though they were invented before computers.
If you mean the most widely used parts of computer science research, like algorithms and big-O notation, then it seems pretty clear that those won't become archaic any time soon.
If you mean the syntax and libraries of today's popular programming language, then well, duh. You shouldn't be asking about this stuff at interviews in the first place. Your own argument perfectly explains why.
That depends on what you mean by "state of the art".
If you mean the cutting edge of computer science research, then it might not even appear in the mainstream in the next 20 years. For example, type inference was invented in 1982, and 25 years later a very limited version of it entered the mainstream in C# 3.0. Heck, some people even consider lambdas innovative, even though they were invented before computers.
If you mean the most widely used parts of computer science research, like algorithms and big-O notation, then it seems pretty clear that those won't become archaic any time soon.
If you mean the syntax and libraries of today's popular programming language, then well, duh. You shouldn't be asking about this stuff at interviews in the first place. Your own argument perfectly explains why.