Re: Testing job applicants

[gillies@cs.ubc.ca (Donald Gillies)]

hnlute@optcamel.com (Howard N. Lute) writes:

>In article <37ced3ff@195.34.192.13>, ruffrecords@geocities.com 
>says...
>> 
>> Jerry Freedman Jr wrote in message <7qjlnv$r1l$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>> >In article <FG7B1C.FL0@world.std.com>,
>> >  jkenton@world.std.com (Jeff Kenton) wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Note:  this was the thread about "Not enough real programmers", but I
>> >> have hijacked it.
>> >>
>> >
>> >I have met a *LOT* of people with Computer Science/Engineering degrees
>> >who have told me "Yeah, I am getting this degree, but I really don't
>> >want/like to program".
>> >
>> 
>> This may be controversial but as a rule we find people with computer science
>> degrees don't make good software engineers.  This is at least in part
>> because nearly all our developments are cost sensitive embedded
>> applications.  We find computer scientists have insufficient appreciation of
>> the hardware aspects.
>> 

I think this is a bit of an over-generalization.  I have worked with
many excellent programmers who have computer science degrees.
However, two things are the norm :

  (a) All were self-taught before their degree.  All were excellent
      *before* the degree.
  (b) All have *engineering* degrees (most in computer science in
      engineering departments) The ones with science degrees are
      at a significan disadvantage.  The ones with engineering degrees
      have to take several hardware courses (circuits, logic, computer
      design) and design hardware.  The science majors are clueless in
      these subjects. 

======

If you look at the best engineers in "anything", imho they are all
self-taught.  The kids soldering together radios at age 12, the
mechE's modifying their bicycle components at age 15, the aerospace
engineers playing with model airplanes at age 10, etc.  It is said
that the most outstanding people in a field typically develop their
life-long interest and enthusiam for a subject at the age of 10.  And
if they are going to be world-class, it usually, it takes about 10
years for them to develop those world-class skills.

Now if you like the non-computer science hires better than the CS
ones, perhaps it's because they are all self-taught.  But I have seen
a lot of simple problems that were badly botched by self-taught
people.

For example, who here wants to hire a compiler person who is self
taught ??  Without a good formal background and a thorough
understanding of language theory, an attempt to write a translator
will be 100% guaranteed failue.  I've seen it several times in the
past.  While it's possible to find someone who learned all this stuff
on his own, the risk is not worth the reward...

A college degree is never a guarantee of competance.  When I graduated
with good grades and a CS degree from MIT, my education was lacking in
many important areas (numerical analysis, algorithmic theory and
system science).  The person himself is the only guarantee of
competance.  I returned to grad school to complete my education in
these areas.

- Don