I don't disagree with the comments about the triteness of this page and other articles like it. That doesn't mean it's entirely without value though. Think of it as like a financial budget: you know you're not going to hit it completely and some of the items you've budgeted for will turn out to be unnecessary or wasteful. At the end of the budget period, though, it gives you something to measure actual performance against.
Programmer Competency Matrix
11–20 of 46 posts
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#12Isn't this the sort of table that shows its author is a L337 hax0r because he's in the top category of everything? Anyone who automatically puts things like DVCS, TDD, and practices obviously related to Open Source development in the top tier sounds more like a Kool-Aid drinker than an objective observer making a sincere attempt to provide a useful resource.
These things are heuristics, not things that actually make you good. Look at "has tried bzr/hg/git". That's probably true of the best programmers. But trying git for one day is not going to make you one of the best programmers.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#13Thanks to John Haugeland for a reformatting of it that works much more nicely on the web.
Where does "basic HTML" come in the matrix?
PS Flagged, dupe.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#14Quantifications like these drive what we do from serious play into solemnity.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#15I don't disagree with the comments about the triteness of this page and other articles like it. That doesn't mean it's entirely without value though. Think of it as like a financial budget: you know you're not going to hit it completely and some of the items you've budgeted for will turn out to be unnecessary or wasteful. At the end of the budget period, though, it gives you something to measure actual performance ag…
Honestly, I think it's seems like a great check list for finding holes in one's background and education.
If you could make it into a wiki, it would be good since then the hole's in the author's experience could also be filled.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#16[deleted]
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#17Isn't this the sort of table that shows its author is a L337 hax0r because he's in the top category of everything? Anyone who automatically puts things like DVCS, TDD, and practices obviously related to Open Source development in the top tier sounds more like a Kool-Aid drinker than an objective observer making a sincere attempt to provide a useful resource.
Last time this came up, somebody made the comment that you're in the highest category that you have finished everything below. Just because you started with git doesn't make you good at VCSs, but if you have done everything below it as well, you probably are an expert. To put it another way: would you put SVN on the right side of that row?
As an aside, I do believe that DVCSs are somewhat more complicated than their centralized counterparts. This is mostly because they are young and lack the mature tool environment that things like SVN do. As a result, users are forced to understand how they work, instead of relying on pre-defined sequence of work->save->test->commit. If SVN was the new hotness, people would have written reams about the theoretical motivations behind a a centralized server, copying-as-branching, etc. But it's not, so git/hg/bzr get all the credit for being algorithmically interesting. In the end, this means that if you don't want to think about it, go with a VCS that's a little older, and I think that justifies the ordering in the chart.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#18I don't disagree with the comments about the triteness of this page and other articles like it. That doesn't mean it's entirely without value though. Think of it as like a financial budget: you know you're not going to hit it completely and some of the items you've budgeted for will turn out to be unnecessary or wasteful. At the end of the budget period, though, it gives you something to measure actual performance ag…
Honestly, I think it's seems like a great check list for finding holes in one's background and education. If you could make it into a wiki, it would be good since then the hole's in the author's experience could also be filled.
What would add to or remove from the original matrix?
What I would change: - add mention of RFCs, e.g. 2616 (HTTP) and 1738 (URL)
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#19Must be a slow week - this particular "very simplistic" article has been here at least 3 times before in the last month. Its very cute to divide programmer competency into a clean matrix - its never that simple.
> Must be a slow week
Well, it is December 30th so probably likely to be slower than average...
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#20Here's an alternative 1x1 matrix:
[ build something that people will pay money for by any means necessary ]
Much easier to remember.