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The myth of the developer that can't code

neilwithdata.com

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Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#21

Post by 7777fps »

Accountants, Lawyers, and Surveyors have credentialling bodies that train, test and monitor performance.

Accountants don't need to show they are qualified in interview because they have the letters ACA, ACCA, CEMA or whatever that they can clearly point to.

Lawyers and Surveyors similarly have profession bodies that handle qualification.

Software engineering is not uniquely broken but it is broken, but the author jumps to the wrong conclusion.

The other engineering and professional disciplines have professional bodies who have official qualifications.

Software engineering has never solidified around any particular set of qualifications and many think they are not relevant.

And artists are often asked to do some initial work for free before a client commits, they often end up doing a lot of "wasted" work for free without getting properly compensated, so it seems odd to argue that's a model that software should look toward.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#22

Post by TurboHaskal »

If only it was a myth. I always like(d) to do a simple programming exercise (no fancy data structures nor algorithms) that can easily be solved with a map / filter / reduce one-liner (or a for loop with an accumulator and a simple if else, that's fine too).

I get that people aren't good at coding in interviews (count me in!), but I have lost count of the number of applicants who can't get it done. The situation got so bad that they kindly asked me to stop asking such questions.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#24

Post by austincheney »

gregdoesit wrote: post #5

This article is full of opinions, and brings no facts to the table. The author does not mention his experience interviewing or hiring people, and the whole piece reads more like a rant. > When an accountant is in an interview, they're not asked to multiply on-the-spot in their head what 485 x 761 equals because "you have to be good at math to be an accountant" This is an ignorant statement. Accountats don't have to m…

I fully agree. Here is my experience hiring from a pool of candidates:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22740897

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#25

Post by denormalfloat »

gregdoesit wrote: post #5

This article is full of opinions, and brings no facts to the table. The author does not mention his experience interviewing or hiring people, and the whole piece reads more like a rant. > When an accountant is in an interview, they're not asked to multiply on-the-spot in their head what 485 x 761 equals because "you have to be good at math to be an accountant" This is an ignorant statement. Accountats don't have to m…

>I'd love to hear what OP suggests to replace the coding tests with.

Making it easier to fire mishires would probably cover it.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#26

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

peschu wrote: post #13
sparsely wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruitment for accountants etc often includes a technical skills component, I don't know why he thinks it doesn't.

I used to work as a finance controller and I really never had to show a technical skill in an interview... And never saw it/heard from colleagues in finance, maybe in international accounting(which is more rule/law based) they ask if you know some stuff about this and that but nothing serious...

CPAs go through a test more rigorous than the bar!

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#27

Post by thayne »

As someone who didn't major in CS, the technical interview is the reason I was able to get a job. I didn't have ton of professional experience, and I didn't have a degree in a directly relevant field. But in a technical interview, I could show that yes, I really did know how to code.

I did have a "portfolio" of projects on Github, but it wasn't very large, and the most interesting project there were, well, too complicated for an interviewer to understand in short amount of time. And what about people who don't contribute to open source, either due to lack of time or desire? What do they have for a portfolio?

Don't get me wrong, technical interviews certainly aren't perfect, and there are a lot of ways to improve them. But I think they should be improved by making them measure what an developer actually does, rather than removing them altogether. In fact, I would say that if accountants (or any other technical profession) aren't assessed on their technical ability as part of the interview process, maybe they should be.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#28

Post by W0lf »

The conclusion that those rejected developers eventually ended up getting a job at another software company and hence they must be able to code properly is false IMHO. In my experience there are a lot of dysfunctional software companies out there where people do get hired for software jobs but they all end up doing whitebox testing or clicking around in some Excel sheets.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#29

Post by reallydontask »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #22

If only it was a myth. I always like(d) to do a simple programming exercise (no fancy data structures nor algorithms) that can easily be solved with a map / filter / reduce one-liner (or a for loop with an accumulator and a simple if else, that's fine too). I get that people aren't good at coding in interviews (count me in!), but I have lost count of the number of applicants who can't get it done. The situation got s…

I've seen people panic in coding interviews

I used to have a set of unit tests and asked the candidate to make them pass and I thought this was a good system.

We have a senior dev that got something wrong early on, started getting more nervous, refused help as it was a simple problem, got more nervous and flaked out completely.

On the other hand we had people that were so unfamiliar with coding that this was a good test to weed them out.

Re: The myth of the developer that can't code

#30

Post by newcrobuzon »

santoshalper wrote: post #18

Several times in my career I have worked with people in software developer roles who could not write basic code. This was not a situation of mistaken title, they were in a position where they were expected to write code and could not. In several cases, they struggled to operate Visual Studio in spite of claiming to be a proficient .NET developer. Non-technical management could not tell the difference or nepotism was…

> they struggled to operate Visual Studio in spite of claiming to be a proficient .NET developer

Just out of curiosity: were these junior devs? Were they maybe more proficient in other language/IDE? Couldn't better mentoring/on-job training help - rather than just to "weed them out"?

I might be naive but (and I have also been on leading positions) I still believe that if it seems that somebody "cannot code" it (most of the time) just means that somebody a bit more senior just have to invest a bit of time to coach them...

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