If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#121

Post by sgift » Fri, Sep 08, 2017, 7:14 AM UTC

mrlyc wrote: post #117

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.

I do this by bringing samples of my code and documentation.

If you can do this that's great - often that is not possible for various reasons, usually "You wrote code for an employer, the employer doesn't want you to show that code to someone else".

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#122

Post by carlmr » Fri, Sep 08, 2017, 11:26 AM UTC

virtuabhi wrote: post #102

redblacktree wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really. That job was poorly done AND expensive.

The same is said about Indian outsourcing (expensive in the long run), right? I think many people miss the fact that boring jobs with low wages will not attract talented programmers. Same holds true when you outsource jobs. Send interesting jobs and pay for good Indian programmers for quality results. healthcare.gov was a clusterfuck not because it was complicated (a typical data integration task with a query layer)…

But communication overhead and a wage that attracts talented programmers in India, will make development there just as costly as if you do it locally. So your manager outsources to cheap Indian shops, and then always gets frustrated with the quality.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#123

Post by carlmr » Fri, Sep 08, 2017, 11:36 AM UTC

sigi45 wrote: post #118

rootlocus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can switch between languages. But i learned to write code in PHP, Java, C++ and other languaes. There is no necessarity for someone, who is a PHP or Java Developer to switch easily to another language. It takes a few weeks, month and perhaps 1-2 years for someone and i think it is fair enough to decide to hire an java guy for a java position over an php developer and to ask this in a job interview. It might be also…

I don't think you need to dismiss it as a factor. I think there are quite a lot of people who can get into a new language in a matter of weeks. That's really not the issue, you just have to find out if he's motivated to get into it. Because motivation is key. If your PHP developer is excited about becoming a Java developer he'll do fine. If he wants to stay in his comfort zone it's not.