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If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

jasonbock.net

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Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#21

Post by watwut »

martijn_himself wrote: post #3

Could be updated: Interviewer: Could you give us a couple of examples of carpentry projects you have completed in your spare time, and do you have a portfolio of projects you have worked on outside of your day-to-day job? Carpenter: Uhm, what do you mean? Interviewer: I mean like carpentry in your community, or a project you've completed to hone your skills outside work? Carpenter: Oh, I am usually quite tired of ham…

I dunno. I was quite disappointed when nobody cared about projects could show when I was interviewing last time.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#22

Post by rootlocus »

rcarmo wrote: post #7

I grabbed this article and replaced: - "carpenter" with "data scientist" - "brown" with "machine learning" - "walnut" with "AI" and - "rock" with "Kubernetes" It was perfectly up to date regarding my neck of the woods :) (edit: formatting)

I'd like to know what you replaced "nail gun" or "hammer" with.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#23

Post by JustSomeNobody »

sgift wrote: post #5
martijn_himself wrote: post #3

Could be updated: Interviewer: Could you give us a couple of examples of carpentry projects you have completed in your spare time, and do you have a portfolio of projects you have worked on outside of your day-to-day job? Carpenter: Uhm, what do you mean? Interviewer: I mean like carpentry in your community, or a project you've completed to hone your skills outside work? Carpenter: Oh, I am usually quite tired of ham…

It would be pretty cool if programmers could show their day job programs the way a carpenter can say "I build this" and people could look at it to see its quality. Unfortunately, this is often not possible.

How often can a carpenter really do this? What if most of his clients won't allow him to take pictures? And certainly most won't allow strangers to come in and fondle the furniture.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#24

Post by rootlocus »

pasta wrote: post #13

At my company: Inteviewer: So you are a carpenter? Carpenter: Yes. Inteviewer: Can you make a start fixing that leaky roof over there? We will monitor your skills and might hire you. Carpenter: Done.

So you always have leaky roofs at your company? And if you don't like what he did, you just keep the repairs? Sorry for being picky, but you could've used "make a dog house" or something like that. I hope you don't put patches from interviewees in production code.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#25

Post by Chris2048 »

rootlocus wrote: post #20
sigi45 wrote: post #11

It makes a difference if a person has 5 years java experience or 5 years php experience only. There is a lot to learn about culture, tools, frameworks etc.

Software is software. The paradigms are the same. The languages have the same roots. What is culture for a programming language anyways? Sure, the tools and frameworks are different, and every language has it's own quirks and uniqueness but they're not as different as you make it sound. If a developer is skilled, these are small differences.

> The paradigms are the same

So Clojure, Java, Javascript, Haskell and Ruby are all basically the same?

I think damage can be done hammering different languages into the same methodologies..

> If a developer is skilled

You suggest skill is generic. If a programmer is smart they can learn new paradigms. Projecting the paradigms they are used to onto new domains can produce problems, least of all the standardisation.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#26

Post by Chris2048 »

pasta wrote: post #13

At my company: Inteviewer: So you are a carpenter? Carpenter: Yes. Inteviewer: Can you make a start fixing that leaky roof over there? We will monitor your skills and might hire you. Carpenter: Done.

Inteviewer: We've decided not to hire you.

Carpenter: I'm breaking your roof.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#27

Post by g00gler »

watwut wrote: post #21
martijn_himself wrote: post #3

Could be updated: Interviewer: Could you give us a couple of examples of carpentry projects you have completed in your spare time, and do you have a portfolio of projects you have worked on outside of your day-to-day job? Carpenter: Uhm, what do you mean? Interviewer: I mean like carpentry in your community, or a project you've completed to hone your skills outside work? Carpenter: Oh, I am usually quite tired of ham…

I dunno. I was quite disappointed when nobody cared about projects could show when I was interviewing last time.

Right. At my last interview I'd try to steer the discussion to a side project or job-before-last but they pretty much only cared about my day job.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#28

Post by imgabe »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #23
sgift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be pretty cool if programmers could show their day job programs the way a carpenter can say "I build this" and people could look at it to see its quality. Unfortunately, this is often not possible.

How often can a carpenter really do this? What if most of his clients won't allow him to take pictures? And certainly most won't allow strangers to come in and fondle the furniture.

It's not uncommon for a contractor or architect to take pictures of a building after it's completed to use in their marketing material. It's pretty standard unless the client requests that they don't.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#29

Post by martijn_himself »

sgift wrote: post #5
martijn_himself wrote: post #3

Could be updated: Interviewer: Could you give us a couple of examples of carpentry projects you have completed in your spare time, and do you have a portfolio of projects you have worked on outside of your day-to-day job? Carpenter: Uhm, what do you mean? Interviewer: I mean like carpentry in your community, or a project you've completed to hone your skills outside work? Carpenter: Oh, I am usually quite tired of ham…

It would be pretty cool if programmers could show their day job programs the way a carpenter can say "I build this" and people could look at it to see its quality. Unfortunately, this is often not possible.

I agree reality is probably more subtle that this, but I do feel that there is too much emphasis on public repositories in application processes.

It's probably more common for recent graduates to have public repositories than for the majority of senior devs. Then again I'm sure there are other pressures graduates have to deal with that senior devs don't.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#30

Post by arjie »

The equivalent the other way. If programmers hired like carpenters are hired made a table:

"How long will it take to make this table?"

"3 weeks. But we're going to try using this new kind of leg because it's easier to replace with another leg if you don't like it. So it may take 5 weeks."

5 weeks pass

"Is the table done?"

"Well, no, not really. But now you can have four different legs if you want to. We've also got this table building machine that can make all the different types of legs that will slot in"

"Can we use the table-building machine to build the table?"

"No, it only does legs right now"

10 weeks later

"All right guys, it's been twice as long. Is it done?"

"Yeah, we're finished. You're going to love this. We upgraded the table building machine so now it builds as many tables as you like. All you have to do is sketch out a full blueprint. We've got one blueprint for the table you want, but you can make more if you like"

"Where's my actual table?"

"Oh, it's that pile in the corner. It's broken, though. Jack placed a red cup on it and it fell apart. You're not supposed to do that. We told him to use blue cups. It's in the manual. We explicitly fixed blue cups last week."

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