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Strategies for implementing a dynamic, extensible search system

I wasn't quite sure how to word this question, as this is a field in which I am not very familiar, and I'm seeking less of a specific solution and more of what I should be looking to learn to better understand the problem...
if this is to be closed as a result, please suggest ways I can better express the question as I would very much like to get some input.
Basically the problem is this: I have a several different tables of data, each of which identifies different properties of a user. For example, one table might define a users demographic data (gender, location, etc.), another their interests, and another perhaps their favorite songs.
I want to be able to issue different searches of this data via an application running asp.net mvc, but rather than find specific matches (such as say a song title), I want to be able to do something like "women who like burgers and live in texas".
clearly this is a more dynamic search than just a simple keyword because the criteria can vary both by which data is being searched, what combinations of data is being aggregated, and what actually constitutes a match on each parameter.
If I want to research the different ways something like this can be accomplished, what should I look for? is this something Functional Programming could help resolve? or perhaps dynamic LINQ? i've seen some docs on expression trees which went completely over my head, but looked promising. however I wasn't sure this would fit because the data may change as well (such as new tables being added) and I'm not sure if that is something that needs to be fully defined ahead of time.
What concepts, algorithms and patterns should I explore that might help me create such a system?
I'm happy to learn, but this is something I'm completely in the dark about and don't even know where to begin, so any introductory concepts that I can start exploring would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I just realized I missed one important requirement which is that these searches also need to be saved. so in addition to dynamically searching the data, I also need a way to persist these searches.
the closest thing I can think of that does something like this is say a CRM or Project Management tool which lets you build queries on the fly and save them to be run on demand or on a schedule...
what are some of the strategies that these systems use? the more time i spend researching Dynamic LINQ the better it seems but I'm not sure if I am on the right track.

How to efficiently make changes to code (removing defunct code)

I've got an ASP.NET web application, that is essentially our intranet site. I made a lot of progress on the administration office's employee management pages. It ties into an SQL server database, and I'm using a three layered design (Objects, Logic, DataAccess). It was all reviewed and all of it was accepted, except! for the part that manages vacations and vacation histories.
My question, before I go into details is, how does one efficiently "untangle" code that is no longer necessary?
For example: previously I was treating each VacationDay as it's own entity with it's own history. Such that I could track the history of an individual day. To help in tracking, I have an enum called VacationDayAction, which includes options such as .Submitted, .RequestDenied, .CancellationRequested, and so on. This was in an attempt to provide meticulous detail for each day. It was then determined that we no longer need that. We do, however, still need VacationDays and all the basic functions of that (saving days, getting days, etc.), but now we no longer need any of the "history" related classes.
My problem is, when I right click a class that I no longer need in VS and go to "Show All References," I get a ton of results scattered across several pages. I need to get rid of all of them, without breaking the rest of the application. Is there not some kind of "smart" technique or method for easily untangling parts that are no longer necessary? This is particularly difficult because 90% of what I did was just fine, and needs to stay like it is. Yet scattered in that 90% is 10% of stuff that is no longer needed. I can't just go storming through with the delete key either, because with the removal of each reference, I need to be sure that any dependencies on that reference are also fixed in a way that they don't call stuff that isn't there anymore. And I still need the application is a compilable state, so that I can test along the way that the rest of the application didn't fall apart as a result of some deletion.
To give you an idea of my low level of experience, I started two years ago with having never used C#, ASP.Net, or Visual Studio. It blew my mind when, way after starting and as I was learning, someone taught me that I could use breakpoints. And then it really really blew my mind when I learned about multi-layered design. I'm wondering if there is not some technique or trick or feature that can help in scenarios like this, where you have to "untangle" and throw away unnecessary stuff.

This is not a simple question. In fact, I would say this is one of the major challenges for any systems developer; how to handle and get rid of old code which is not in use. There is lots of literature on this, and few really excellent answers. A good book may be "Working effectively with legacy code" by Michael Feathers, which deals with many related problems. It is no light read though, and will probably take some time to get through, but it will likely help you become a better coder, and better at these kinds of tasks in particular.
Maybe you can have a look at the Resharper tool? ( http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/ ) It is a productivity tool which among other things shows "dead" code (unused code) in grey, and lets you remove it. It will also help you remove unused references from each class (again, they will be grayed out and let you remove them automatically).
Drawing diagrams where each major piece of code /component is a box with a line linking it to any related component might help you get a better overview; try to draw a hierarchy showing how different parts of the code are related and dependent.
The bottom line as far as I know, is that you just have to muddle through it, commenting out code a little at a time, then recompiling and testing it. If it still works, fine, now you can remove the commented out code completely. This would be easier if you had unit-tests covering your code, but I take it as a given that you don't, as is unfortunately often the case.

Giving Visual Studio and WPF overview guidance

I'm giving a demo and instroduction of Visual Studio, C# and WPF to C++ on Linux developers that will be soon coding in C#. My plan is to go over a demo application that explains some basics in C#/WPF and an overview of some of the VS options.
Does anyone have any suggestions on conducting the demo?
Any good websites that can help with overviews?

Suggestions:
Keep the mood light and easy. They are probably already in bad mood after being told to throw away a good part of their skills and learn a completely different way in order to keep their job.
I really hope you are also a c++/linux developer. You'll need to relate to them somehow. If not, consider letting someone else give this intro. If they start complaining in the demo you'll have to know how to bring them back inline.
Make sure your demo shows something of real value to them. For example, "I know you guys solve problem X this way, but with WPF/C# that problem is so much easier because..."
The whole thing better be relevant to the fundamental reason why they are being forced to switch. Cover this, in detail. Make sure you answer their questions completely. Be prepared to have your demo derailed by questions. This could be a Good Thing(TM) as it would hopefully show real engagment.. as long as you keep it positive.
Make sure that you have ZERO flaws in your presentation. Any will be ripped apart, made to appear bigger than it is, and subsequently used as a reason why they shouldn't switch.
Under no circumstance should you argue with any of them. See suggestion #1.
Consider enlisting one of "them" to help put the demo together. Let that person guide some of the covered topics. This goes a long way towards good will; which you'll need in spades.
I'm making a big assumption that they weren't the ones who drove the decision to switch. Given the target, it's probably a safe assumption but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

What C# knowledge should I have? [closed]

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A very open question. I've been programming in C# for the
past 5 months doing small projects that I completed
successfully.
Today I went to an interview for a C# role. The 1st question
was 'Tell me about boxing'. Given my experience I had no
idea what the guy meant. Needless to say the interview
didn't go that well. Others questions were 'why isn't it
recommended to use an ArrayList of int', 'tell me what you
know about threading', etc.
I don't really want this to happen again so I'm planning to
spend some time reading (and practising) more on C#. I
understand that the best way of learning is by coding but
coding wouldn't have really helped me answer the question
about 'boxing' for example.
I'm not asking you to answer the above technical questions.
In fact, I know now their answer as I went straight to
Google after the interview and it's how I realised that my
C# knowledge is somewhat limited.
My question is: in your opinion, which knowledge should any
C# developer have? Ideally it would be better if you could
categorize it (Basic knowledge anyone should have without
exception, Advanced knowledge, Expert knowledge etc). No need
to go into details. Doing research on whatever you list will
be a good exercise for me.

I would expect someone going for a professional C# job to know about:
Generics and generic collections
Interfaces (general)
Interfaces (specific), namely -
IDisposable: how it's integrated into the language and why
IEnumerable: including common extension methods, iterator blocks, and deferred execution
Overview of serialization in .Net (maybe not have done it, but understand what it is and know where to look in the namespace heirarchy and documentation)
Overview of Xml in .Net (same as serialization)
Overview of threading concepts (same as xml/serialization). Bonus points for understanding why most thread-safe collections aren't.
Have used anonymous delegates / lambdas in at least one project, and therefore also have a basic idea about closures.
Comfortable explaining some basic concepts from at least one of winforms, wpf, webforms, or MVC
Be able to answer some easy questions on specific common classes in the .Net BCL: namely from System.Data (think parameterized queries!) and System.IO (filestreams, path).
Garbage collection: when should you call GC.Collect (hint: pretty much never) and why

Here is a good list: What Great .NET Developers Ought To Know.

My personal experience from a long time ago when I was in school.
I went to see my father at work in a bank. At that time, most of his day was taking care of accounts and making sure every thing worked. What I saw was he was trying to tally/calculate large numbers and calculating(basic additions/multiplications...).
After noticing him, I asked him: Dad, if all you have to do is basic additions and multiplications, why bother to study till graduation?
His response was : While you don't have to use all the knowledge you have acquired, that knowledge would help you make learned decisions.
Coming to your question: While you dont have to use the entire set of concepts, knowing that they exist would help you make good decisions while you code.
My suggestion along with the others posted would be to try and spend some time on stackoverflow every day.
Good luck.

A good interviewer isn't going to grill you on trivia. That's why we have Google. A good interviewer is going to find areas you don't know, and ask you questions there, as that's the best place to find out how you react when confronted with something you don't have down pat.
The best advice I can give for interviews is to not worry about the technical trivia too much. Instead, in an interview, focus on problem-solving skills. If you don't know something, don't try to hide it, just admit it. If you think you know, it's okay to say "I'm not sure, but I think it's this." And don't get flummoxed either - at that point, usually the interviewer will give you a hint. This is not just giving you the answer, it's another part of the test - to see if, given a nudge in the right direction, you can extrapolate from there.
For the boxing/ArrayList/int questions, if I was interviewing and you didn't understand boxing, I'd give you a basic description of what boxing did. Then I'd ask you, knowing what I just told you, why you might think using ints in an ArrayList might be a bad idea.
One thing that will go far in any interview is focusing on the requirements, the desired result, and boundary conditions or edge cases. As most programming interview questions fall into the "write this method" category, make sure you get the following correct:
1) The inputs to the method
2) The expected output of the method
3) Boundary and edge cases.
This sounds ridiculously basic, but it's amazing how many developers, even ones with experience, don't bother thinking through these things. Code solves a problem - if you don't understand the problem correctly, you can't solve it correctly.

I would have to say that if an interviewer can be fooled into thinking someone has more .NET / C# experience by he or she visiting a webpage, then the interviewer is failing. I've interviewed a number of people myself, and I really like the approach of giving them some easy to understand problem to solve, and asking them to write some code on a white board. Even if they've memorized the answers to every question on Scott Hanselman's blog, I would learn a lot about how comfortable they are in the language, as well as how they go about problem solving. I'm looking for a developer, not a partner for Trivial Pursuit, .NET Developer Edition.
That said, keeping up with blogs like Hanselman's is a fantastic way to keep up with the jargon. You could code C# in a vacuum for years, fully understand the advantage of a strongly-typed List<int> over ArrayList, but never actually use the term "boxing". But it's much more time consuming in an interview to ask, "Describe the advantage of iterating through a List<int> instead of an ArrayList of int," than it is to ask, "Tell me about boxing." Plus, actually researching the answers to Hanselman's .NET interview questions (especially if you explore the details and ask "Why?") will make you a better developer. So by all means, keeping reading Hanselman.
And one more note... If I ask someone whether a String is a reference type or a value type, and they simply say "Hmmm... Reference type," I'm not going to be nearly as happy as I would if the response was, "Hmmm... Reference type, but that's an interesting question." "Why is that?", I say... "Because string is implemented so that the string is immutable, allowing you to do things with it like safely use it as a hash key. Or pass it to a method, knowing the value cannot be changed. So in a way, strings can act a lot like value types..." And that would be a great conversation, leading me to ask, "So tell me more about why hash keys should be immutable..."
It's not just the difference between answering a 50/50 question correctly and all the additional information in the second answer. Having an intelligent conversation with a interviewee leads me to think I'll have intelligent conversations like that on a regular basis once the interviewee becomes my coworker. And that's something I'm definitely looking for.

Also depends on the role. If this was advertised as a jnr role then a threading question is a little tough...sometimes agencies/employers have unrealistic expectations.

A similar thing happened to my significant other taking a driving test. The state trooper said, "make a roundabout" and she didn't know what he was talking about. Both of us think a roundabout is a type of road layout with a big circle, not a u-turn as the instructor meant. So I know what you mean.
Programming job interviews vary wildly. Some people think you can't really judge a programmer well in an interview and are willing to give anyone who makes a good impression a chance. Others are grueling things which only those overqualified for the position would pass, and you will probably be suprised how often you get a call back from those.

This is something I have been pondering myself a lot lately. Using C# plenty but not sure what I am missing.
I ordered
Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation
Which covers a lot of ground related to C#
Also looking at C# in Depth
Read some of this already. Has some great information from a high quality author.
In depth is on sale too via Jon Skeet's blog

Programming hire test - Test a developers knowledge in C# / ASP.NET [closed]

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We're hiring a .NET developer soon, and I was assigned to create a test, which would take aprox: 1h to solve. A test which would test the programmers knowledge in (mainly) C# and ASP.NET.
This is what i've come up with so far:
Use project #1 to read data(HTML) from the specified URL and output all links(anchors) containing anchor name “xxxxxxxxx”. You are free to use 3rd party libraries. My main thought here was to test how the developer would go about solving the problem. For example:
Create a regex which would parse all the data needed.
Create a DOM-tree and use XPATH to find all anchor nodes.
Iterate the whole string and perform manual string compares.
Create a new solution where you demonstrate the usage of .NET masterpages.
Connect the solution to the ******** database. And output all customers from the “********_customers” table.
Create a new button which refreshes all users using AJAX.
Pretty basic stuff. Though, I also added the one below. Mainly to test the developers OO knowledge. Do you think this is too "overkill", or what kind of test would you suggest? If you were to hire a ASP.NET developer, what would your main focus be? ADO.NET? IO? string handling?
Create an interface/abstract class implementation demonstrating the functionallity of either the Factory, Factory Method, Command or Decorator pattern. You wont need to implement any functionallity, just use comments in your abstract class.
Thanks in advance!

The task you gave is essentially a day or two worth of coding if you want to have reasonably readable code. Within an hour I guess I would do it, but you'd have to read code that has cryptically named methods, unreadable regexes, weird callbacks, no error handling and overall is pretty darn ugly. Looking at it you would not hire me.
Before you give your question to candidates, first make sure that your peers/programmers can do it first. And that you can code it in less than 60 minutes in a way that would satisfy you.
That said, I do not know if test is the best choice for hiring anyone. A few interviewing bloggers wrote about their experience coming from conducting tons of interviews:
Guerilla Guide to Interviewing by Joel Spolksy
Truth about interviewing, Get that job at Google (and many others) by Steve Yegge
I totally agree with them. Having conducted about a gazillion of interviews myself, I find that asking basic technology related questions is not nearly as good as asking to implement a bit of recursion or pointers (if someone claims to know C/C++).
By hiring someone who understands recursion/algorithms you get a smart guy who can learn new technology. When you hire someone who knows how to connect to a database, who knows how to connect to a database but not necessarily qualified to do much more than that.
There are a few sources of good programming questions that are somewhere between coding and algorithms that may inspire you. They do not test .NET at all, but are very good indicator of smart programmers.
Top Coder
Google Code jam

Within 1 hour you can only test his programming skills, but it's not enough to write the code sample.
Take a look at this C# / ASP.NET MVC test:
http://tests4geeks.com/test/asp-net-mvc-c-sharp
After the applicant will pass the test and result will be good, then invite him to the interview and talk about his experience. Ask about most difficult features, that he implemented in his projects. In other words, you must understand, if he know and can do enough to take part in your project.
If you still want to ask him to write some code. That is some idea:
There are the students and subjects. Please ask to write 3 pages (asp .net mvc or web-forms). First and second - for editing the dictionary of students and subjects. Third form must contain be the table. The students are in left column. The subjects are in the top row. The marks are at the intersection. Each mark can be edited (text box) and saved. Saving could be implemented by clicking the common button "Save". Or it could save each cell automatically using the Ajax.
This is very simple example, but it would show you how user writes the code, what techniques does he use.

I would have thought that it would be better to simply create a test that would make it easy for you to put developers into different 'skill buckets'.
Why not have three or four sections or features that the developer must 'layer' features on top one another to show their programming and design skills.
Part 1: Implement x easy difficulty
features.
Part 2: Implement x medium difficulty
features.
Part 3: Implement x difficult
features.
Part 4: Implement x very difficult features.
And give the developer 1 hour to write the application. Make it realistic that they can implement the features in the given time frame.
As Joel and Jeff say on the Stackoverflow podcast, there is a direct correlation between developer skill and speed.
Think about the way exams are structured? We can all get 100% of the questions correct in any exam we sit if we had infinite time, but in 1 hour?
This way, If a developer takes your test and only implements features up to Section 2 in the time period, then you should have a safe indication that they are not suitable for the job. Section 3 features all done then they are good enough and section 4 complete would indicate that they are very experienced and a slight cut above the rest.
However I would also look at the overall polish that the developer has given to the code. If they implemented all features up to section 4, but poorly, then they are also not going to be someone you want. IF a developer only did up to section 3 but implemented everything very elegantly, then I would want to hire them.
I also think that 1 hour is perhaps a little too long. I would aim for 10-40 minutes obviously you may need to cut out section 4 that I proposed.

You should check
GeekInterview -- a good source for interview questions
There are hundreds of questions.

I think you would be much better off coming up with a single question that will allow you to see more than just development skills using your target technologies. Strong problem solving skills are as important as expertise in a specific technology stack.
I would even recommend that you explore the two aspects of a candidate in different parts of the process. I usually ask a bunch of questions about the technology stack we are using on our project to gauge the candidates level of knowledge as it relates to that stack.
Then I ask them a pure problem solving question and I allow them to use whichever technology they are most comfortable with to solve the problem (their choice of technology can be an important indicator).
I particularly like Graph Theory related problems. The candidates solutions will tell you a ton about how they approach, solve problems as well as how they validate their solutions.
As part of the problem solving portion of the interview you should be looking for:
Proper data structure design
Implementation of OO best practices
Proper solution (can they debug problems effectively... one great way to see this is do not allow them to use a computer, make them code on a whiteboard and debug in their heads)
Proper solution validation (do they come up with test cases)

My 2 cents:
We have a programming test in my company that is easy. Basically, you have to implement the listener pattern extending the ArrayList class, create unit tests for it (based on at least what we require), document the corner cases, document the program itself if you want to, and then send the test back to us.
A developer has 48 hours to complete that test. We ask for production quality in the test. We want to test the following items:
Was the developer smart enough to cover the corner cases?
Is the developer implementation of multi-threading satisfactory?
Are the unit tests good enough? Do they cover enough cases?
Is the code well written and documented? Will someone be able to maintain that code in the future?
Does he care about his code? Did he explain why he did "A" and not "B"?
I don't think short tests are capable of evaluating a developer. You may ask for a tool or technology that someone have not been using in the past months, and whoever is being tested for that technology will need sometime to get up to speed - but if a developer was working with that the day before, he will know by memory how to use it, and he/ she will seem smarter than the other developer, what may not be true.
But if you ask for something that is tricky and you are interviewing the developer, you can check how he is going to solve the problem - I don't think it really matters if he/ she cannot get the 100% right answer, as long as he/ she can talk about the problems that you found on the code and show that they actually understand whatever you explained to them.

In the past we have used problems from Google code jam. the problems in the early rounds are easier and they get gradually harder. They are kind of algorithmic in nature, you can solve them in whatever language you like. As they get harder there is often an obvious 'brute force' kind of answer that won't work because of the size of the data. So you have to think of something more optimal.

The first test you suggested should take 10min-40min for a basic dev - I would use a web-crawler I have in my library that converts HTML to XML then easily use Linq to XML.
I would test for lambda expressions, performance patterns maintain files, or writing an object to several files dynamically.
Maybe you would like to test unmanged code, pointers etc.
I donno, im just writing-jabbering while things are comin up to my mind, i wrote things that was hard for me to implement.

few days ago I was invited to pass C# programming test at skillbox website there was 30 questions quiz and 45 time to pass it. Below is some of them:
1) What will be printed by running the program?
#if DEBUG
Console.WriteLine("DEBUG");
#else
Console.WriteLine("RELEASE");
#endif
2) What will be the result of calling SomeMethod():
public static void SomeMethod()
{
string s1 = "a";
string s2 = "b";
Swap(ref s1, ref s2);
Console.WriteLine(s1);
Console.WriteLine(s2);
}
public static void Swap(ref Object a, ref Object b)
{
Object t = b;
b = a;
a = t;
}
Here is a link for reference, I think you can find more C# quezzes there http://skillbox.io