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Re: not enough real programmers? (was Re: Byte Magazine: 18 Vintage issues, 1985-1986)

>>>>> On Sun, 08 Aug 1999 11:23:42 -0700,
    jeff@port-charles.com (Jeff Jungblut) said:

I think that some folks have oversimplified my recommendations.  There
are no silver bullets.  If you do all of what I recommend, you'll have
a much better understanding of the mentality of the person you're
interviewing and have some clue about how much mastery he has over his
environment.  Stuff like that does matter.

>> A few (obvious?) candidates: o Ask for their environment
>> customization files (.emacs, .kshrc, .profile, .login, etc.)

Jeff> That's not really going to tell you if the person is a good
Jeff> programmer.  It's just going to separate the geek programmers,
Jeff> who are into tweaking their computing environment, from other
Jeff> programmers who don't bother tweaking.

"Geek programmers" who customize their environments, in my experience, 
tend to maximize the tools that they have available, and as a result
are more productive than those who don't.  It's rare that someone who
can't figure out how to navigate his way around an environment can
make skillful use of it.

Jeff> Does the interviewee lose points if they admit they don't do
Jeff> work for free? LOL.

Those who in it for the hack tend to be the best and most focused
programmers.  This is especially true when dealing with languages that 
have emerged from the open source community or have strong ties to it: 
Perl, Python, Lisp, etc.

Your AOL-style "LOL" indicates that you not only fail to understand
the significance of open source, but you do not understand the
difference between "without cost" and "open source".  One needn't work 
sans pay in order to make one's source code available.

You Windoze guys crack me up.  Not only do not get it, but you laugh
at the paradigm which is displacing the one to which you've become so
accustomed.  By all means, laugh now, while you still can.  You
haven't much time.

-- 
Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/