I'm tired with people putting elite programmers on pedestals. I used to almost worship this one code guru at my company but I eventually moved on to just working on myself, taking up avocations outside of programming. I'm fortunate to be able to code/problem solve for a profession.
How to recognise a good programmer
11–20 of 51 posts
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#12Everytime I read these kind of articles I see the one glaring headline, how programmers love to work outside of their regular work day Then I become sad because 80% of my week I come home and have to handle something and by the end of it all, I don't have any time to play around (aka, program) because I have to go to bed. Sigh, vicious cycle :( (I know I can work on managing my time better and I am, like cooking more…
Freud was once asked what he though a normal person should be able to do well. The questioner probably expected a complicated, a "deep" answer. But Freud simply said, "Lieben und arbeiten" ("to love and to work"). It pays to ponder on this simple formula; it gets deeper as you think about it. For when Freud said "love", he meant the expansiveness of generosity as well as sexual love; when he said "love and work," he meant a general work productiveness which would not preoccupy the individual to the extent that his right or capacity to be a sexual or loving being would be lost.
(From "Identity and the Life Cycle", by Erik H. Erikson)
Yes, this is a repost of a comment but it is relevant. Work can cut into life and life can cut into work...
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hia, I wrote this article a long time ago, long before the whole hyperbrain thing. It was actually published here, although with "www" in the URL, which explains why it can be reposted :-/ This was actually the article via which I found HackerNews, since HN showed up as a large referrer in my logs so I came here to investigate and, finding it to my taste, stayed. And to answer your question, no, I don't think these c…
Hi, thanks for answering. I relate this to hyperbrains because it talks about programmers that: a) are intelligent, b) work in a lot of different projects, possibly unrelated, that are usually hidden, c) are passionate, and self-taught. Maybe not(hyperbrains your good programmers), but I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list. Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds…
I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list.
That's quite possible, actually. Someone with a hyperbrain who also happens to be a programmer will probably fit most of these criteria - but then, I would say that this is more an indication of hyperbrains being well adapted to programming than of good programmers being hyperbrains.
Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds too powerful, as if being better than the other brains and I don't like it), though I really like your articles on the subject btw.
Thanks. I came up with "hyperbrain" because I felt I had to call it something for it to stick out. Hyperbrain seems like a reasonable term because: a) it's not in use, b) it transmits the idea that this kind of person is "hyper", in the sense of being more extreme in their behaviour. Certainly it's not perfect, but oh well. If it sticks around, it'll stick around, if not, it won't ;-)
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#14Everytime I read these kind of articles I see the one glaring headline, how programmers love to work outside of their regular work day Then I become sad because 80% of my week I come home and have to handle something and by the end of it all, I don't have any time to play around (aka, program) because I have to go to bed. Sigh, vicious cycle :( (I know I can work on managing my time better and I am, like cooking more…
Freud was once asked what he though a normal person should be able to do well. The questioner probably expected a complicated, a "deep" answer. But Freud simply said, "Lieben und arbeiten" ("to love and to work"). It pays to ponder on this simple formula; it gets deeper as you think about it. For when Freud said "love", he meant the expansiveness of generosity as well as sexual love; when he said "love and work," he…
On the other hand, someone said: "You can't be normal and expect abnormal results".
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#15Everytime I read these kind of articles I see the one glaring headline, how programmers love to work outside of their regular work day Then I become sad because 80% of my week I come home and have to handle something and by the end of it all, I don't have any time to play around (aka, program) because I have to go to bed. Sigh, vicious cycle :( (I know I can work on managing my time better and I am, like cooking more…
as a programmer, one of the things i look for in a company is a willingness to let a guy like me play around with technology on the side and not have scary legal documentation concerning their ownership of it. while i work for a startup at the moment, my previous employer (a well-known language learning software company) actively discouraged its employees from pursuing any side projects.
if you're looking to hire someone who's driven, this is a terrible idea; a good programmer will always be thinking of something, mulling some problem over in his head. probably several, a few of which aren't related to his job. if he has to worry about whether or not he can legally work on these things outside of his regular employment, he's less likely to explore, and less likely to learn on his own time.
so hiring managers and legal departments: look for someone who checks over the contracts for ownership rights and complains if they're too strict.
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#16Perhaps most people reading HN would be able to recognize a good programmer. But there are still challenges when you need to hire someone with area of expertise that is outside of your own - if you're hiring someone to do your own job or your clone, it's straightforward. For the last two start-ups in which I was involved (as a graphic designer), a co-worker and I were placed in the position of choosing developers to…
"We met with some programmers who were passionate, but were obviously charlatans." And how did you tell the difference? (when it wasn't obvious... or was it always obvious?)
Well, we did hire one charlatan programmer, but we dropped him pretty quick when we realized that he couldn't produce the quality and quantity of work that he claimed possible. Like I said, this was when we didn't know diddly about programming / hiring programmers.
Regarding the ones that were obvious (as it seemed to me), they were lingo dropping high-horsers, and when we looked at their previous work and saw that they were producing crusty web applications while claiming that they were abreast of all the latest technologies, we knew something was up.
We chose at one point to work with a web development firm that promised great things and they had a strong team... but what I wish we would have payed more attention to was the fact that they were working on MANY other projects and were spread way too thin. In the end they were late on every deadline so we stopped working with them.
I feel fortunate to be working with two other great developers now. But I've worked with several doozies, and it has been through that process that I've learned more about who to hire, and I'm much more cautious now.
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#17Unfortunately, there are programmers that you could recognize using these criteria who produce highly idiosyncratic code that's nearly impossible for someone else to maintain for the months it takes for them to come up to speed. There are also programmers who would be recognized by this criteria who are just as insightful and productive who produce beautiful intention revealing code. How would we recognize the latter…
Try asking them.
"Hey, do you find most of your colleagues are familiar with your code or do you find most of them have trouble getting up to speed with it?" You can ask this question in a very neutral tone, one that implies that the colleagues may have been at fault.
And then, be very careful to determine whether the colleagues really weren't at fault. If you're trying to hire a very smart person, you may find someone who has chafed writing J2EE code in BigCo, and yes his code was inscrutable to his colleagues, that's why he wants to write Python code for you.
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, thanks for answering. I relate this to hyperbrains because it talks about programmers that: a) are intelligent, b) work in a lot of different projects, possibly unrelated, that are usually hidden, c) are passionate, and self-taught. Maybe not(hyperbrains your good programmers), but I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list. Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds…
I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list. That's quite possible, actually. Someone with a hyperbrain who also happens to be a programmer will probably fit most of these criteria - but then, I would say that this is more an indication of hyperbrains being well adapted to programming than of good programmers being hyperbrains. Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds t…
Someone with a hyperbrain who also happens to be a programmer will probably fit most of these criteria - but then, I would say that this is more an indication of hyperbrains being well adapted to programming than of good programmers being hyperbrains.
Touché. If your criteria for good programmers is ok, then you are right.
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#19I'm tired with people putting elite programmers on pedestals. I used to almost worship this one code guru at my company but I eventually moved on to just working on myself, taking up avocations outside of programming. I'm fortunate to be able to code/problem solve for a profession.
This is an article for recognizing good programmers, so you can hire them, not for other programmers to admire them.
Re: How to recognise a good programmer
#20Just coincidentally, these happen to be the exact attributes the author believes he has! How fortunate!