Actually heard this from a candidate I was prepping for a Microsoft interview. I nicknamed him 9243 or Rain Man but I'll get back to that later. I asked if he actually believed that a 'right' answer and a 'right' solution were the same and he answered..."yes". At that point I asked him how many ways he could drive to work from his house and he offered "four" as his answer. Then I asked him which way was right and he looked at me like I had twelve heads.
"They're all right" he said.
"How can that be?" I asked. "How can you have more than one right answer?"
He looked at me and started his sentence with, "because it depends..." at which point I stopped him.
The 'depends' is what separates the correct answer from the correct solution. The solution can be comprised of multiple 'right' answers to counter the 'depends' part, and what kind of value-add might you be to an organization if your solution has answers more correct than what a hiring manager is expecting?
If you only have a correct answer and a 'depends' happens (budgets get slashed, functional spec's get re-written, teams get whacked...) your 'right' answer isn't 'right' any longer, but I'm guessing you get my point.
I'll share the 9243 reference in a later post...vinny
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