The function is simple enough that clojure doesn't make its own wrapper for it, so you wind up doing this:

(.parseInt Integer x)

That may be what he means by dive into Java.

I would never have agreed with you before, but I just came from a place where the fear of using something that was not sexy just paralyzed most of the developers at the company. They spent more time talking about new tech than implementing it. I've sworn off PHP, but at one point there I would almost have preferred they suggest we use it, if only to get something shipped.

Now I don't fret as much about unsexy tech. I do still advocate for new things when they make the team more productive, but I hope I never have to work at a place again where the latest and greatest stuff is used and people get nothing done.

I don't ask multiple questions like FizzBuzz, but I do ask for FizzBuzz. (I will explain the modulo operator if necessary because it doesn't come up that often in web development and people many forget about it until prompted.) Everything else about FizzBuzz (loop over a range, use a conditional, define a function, compare, etc.) is so basic you would think you wouldn't need to test it - but then you run into a person with 10 years experience who can't do it.

It's a (sadly) useful screen. Even more sad when you realize how popular and widespread that particular question is.

I have always been impressed with the amount of lock-in some companies have gotten themselves into with VMWare. Every place I've worked at which used VMWare, their tooling had a stranglehold on the entire business, with the exception of some totally greenfield stuff done on GCE or AWS.