Python interview questions

Talk to me about the GIL. How does it impact concurrency in Python? What kinds of applications does it impact more than others?
How does Python's garbage collection work?
What is the difference between range and xrange? How has this changed over time?
Here's a function. Optimize it for me.
How do you iterate over a list and pull element indices at the same time?
I'm getting a maximum recursion depth error for a function. What does this mean? How can I mitigate the problem?
How do you enforce ordering for a dictionary-style object?
How does Python's list.sort work at a high level? Is it stable? What's the runtime?
What's the difference between a list, dictionary, and array in Python?
What does this list comprehension do?
Here's a class hierarchy with some methods defined. When I call this function, what gets printed?
What is monkeypatching? How can you do it in Python?
What are some caveats to pickling? Marshaling?
How many ways can you append or concatenate strings? Which of these ways is fastest? Easiest to read?
Print me the full pathname of every file in this directory tree.
What's wrong with this function?
What's your preferred editor? (vim, of course - anything else and they fail.)

Basic Python:
=============
- do they know a tuple/list/dict when they see it?
- when to use list vs. tuple vs. dict. vs. set
- can they use list comprehensions (and know when not to
   abuse them? :)
- can they use tuple unpacking for assignment?
- string building...do they use "+=" or do they build a list
   and use .join() to recombine them efficiently
- truth-value testing questions and observations (do they
   write "if x == True" or do they just write "if x")
- basic file-processing (iterating over a file's lines)
- basic understanding of exception handling
Broader Basic Python:
=====================
- questions about the standard library ("do you know if
   there's a standard library for doing X?", or "in which
   library would you find [common functionality Y]?")  Most
   of these are related to the more common libraries such as
   os/os.path/sys/re/itertools
- questions about iterators/generators
- questions about map/reduce/sum/etc family of functions
- questions about "special" methods (__<foo>__)
More Advanced Python:
=====================
- can they manipulate functions as first-class objects
   (Python makes it easy, but do they know how)
- more detailed questions about the std. libraries (such as
   datetime/email/csv/zipfile/networking/optparse/unittest)
- questions about testing (unittests/doctests)
- questions about docstrings vs. comments, and the "Why" of
   them
- more detailed questions about regular expressions
- questions about mutability
- keyword/list parameters and unpacked kwd args
- questions about popular 3rd-party toolkits (BeautifulSoup,
   pyparsing...mostly if they know about them and when to use
   them, not so much about implementation details)
- questions about monkey-patching
- questions about PDB
- questions about properties vs. getters/setters
- questions about classmethods
- questions about scope/name-resolution
- use of lambda
Python History:
===============
- decorators added in which version?
- "batteries included" SQL-capible DB in which version?
- the difference between "class Foo" and "class Foo(object)"
- questions from "import this" about pythonic code
Python Resources:
=================
- what do they know about various Python web frameworks
   (knowing a few names is usually good enough, though
   knowledge about the frameworks is a nice plus) such as
   Django, TurboGears, Zope, etc.
- what do they know about various Python GUI frameworks and
   the pros/cons of them (tkinter, wx, pykde, etc)
- where do they go with Python related questions (c.l.p,
   google, google-groups, etc)
Other Process-releated things:
==============================
- do they use revision control
   (RCS/CVS/Subversion/Mercurial/Git...anything but VSS) and
   know how to use it well
- do they write automated tests for their code
Touchy-feely things:
====================
- tabs vs. spaces, and their reasoning
- reason for choosing Python
- choice of editor/IDE

Do they know a tuple/list/dict when they see it?
When to use list vs. tuple vs. dictionary vs. set?
Can they use list comprehensions (and know when not to abuse them?)
Can they use tuple unpacking for assignment?
String building. Do they use “+=” or do they build a list and use .join() to recombine them efficiently?
Truth-value testing questions and observations (do they write “if x == True” or do they just write “if x”)?
Basic file-processing (iterating over a file’s lines)
Basic understanding of exception handling

Questions about the standard library (”do you know if there’s a standard library for doing X?”, or “in which library would you find [common functionality Y]?”) Most of these are related to the more common libraries such as os/os.path/sys/re/itertools
Questions about iterators/generators
Questions about map/reduce/sum/etc family of functions
Questions about “special” methods (__foo__)
Can they manipulate functions as first-class objects (Python makes it easy, but do they know how)
More detailed questions about the std. libraries (such as datetime/email/csv/zipfile/networking/optparse/unittest)
Questions about testing (unittests/doctests)
Questions about docstrings vs. comments, and the “Why” of them
More detailed questions about regular expressions
Questions about mutability
Keyword/list parameters and unpacked keyword arguments
Questions about popular 3rd-party toolkits (BeautifulSoup, pyparsing…mostly if they know about them and when to use them, not so much about implementation details)
Questions about monkey-patching
Questions about PDB
Questions about properties vs. getters/setters
Questions about classmethods
Questions about scope/name-resolution
Use of lambda
Decorators added in which version?
SQL-capable DB in which version?
The difference between “class Foo” and “class Foo(object)”
Questions from “import this” about pythonic code
What do they know about various Python web frameworks (knowing a few names is usually good enough, though knowledge about the frameworks is a nice plus) such as Django, TurboGears, Zope, etc.
What do they know about various Python GUI frameworks and the pros/cons of them (tkinter, wx, pykde, etc)
Where do they go with Python related questions (c.l.p, google, google-groups, etc)