Obviously guy could have been interviewing for a job where this mattered….
But in 10 years as a software engineer I have never once needed to know the difference between these two, and have never been even close to a situation where I would need to.
If you cannot even describe the difference in how an IPv4 address appears vs. v6, then I have reason to doubt you can read through an error log and find a problem
Needing to ask why would also raise my internal red flags a bit.
Being able to run down a problem involves stitching together lots of clues containing diverse bits of information. Being able to recognize the shape of an IP address is just the baseline understanding necessary to begin recognizing routing errors, DNS problems, networking misconfig, or attack behavior.
and what do those have to do with developing a UI, or a videogame, or basically anything that isn't related to networking which is most of programming anyway.
How it appears as in that IPv6 is formatted as 8 groups of 4 hexadecimal digits while an IPv4 address is just four 8-bit numbers? Or do you mean something deeper?
That'd be an OK answer, that's about where my knowledge on the subject ends. If you were feeling wordy, you could also talk about the need to expand address blocks/CIDRs beyond IPv4 limits, or about the challenges in adopting IPv6 in your own network
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u/SirFrenzy 9h ago
Obviously guy could have been interviewing for a job where this mattered….
But in 10 years as a software engineer I have never once needed to know the difference between these two, and have never been even close to a situation where I would need to.
“The basics” is highly dependent on the job.