I would like to see a section that includes things like identifying/clarifying customer requirements, finding business solutions, controlling scope, organizing a project around some methodology, leading a team, etc. I see the lines for Problem Decomposition and Communication, but I think there is something much broader that is being left out.
Programmer Competency Matrix
51–60 of 127 posts
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, to be honest, I have deep-scripted accessing HN, but I tend only to use it when doing big data crunching on trends and similar. When providing cross-references I've usually just put the IDs - actually counting points, comments and age is something I've not done for a while. Don't think I'll bother again, I get enough grief and hate-mail just from trying to point people at earlier conversations.
I really appreciate it when earlier conversations are pointed to. (The additional points/comments/age numbers are wonderful, too, if you feel up to providing them.) I wonder if a bot could be written to automate this? There are lots of horrible reasons one could have for writing a HN comment bot, so I'm hesitant to even suggest it, but this seems like a really useful/good bot.
Came here to post this, except I was going to suggest it be built into HN itself and be in a section at the top of the comment page, perhaps between the link and the comment box. A way to suggest/add the links to the box would be good too (maybe mods + the submitter could have control of which links show up via this system)
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#53This reminds me that once upon a time scholars thought that art was measurable.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#54Either where I went to school had an exceptional CS program, or most CS programs don't cover what my run-of-the-mill state school covered during my undergrad. About 10 years ago I came out of school at around a level 2 or 3 in almost all of the areas on this grid. I would wager pretty much any 3.5+GPA student in a decent CS program should be the same.
I didn't pursue being a professional developer so I've lost most of these things, but I remember having worked on almost all of these things (such as they were at the time). Some of these things I haven't heard mentioned since my undergrad!
Interestingly, we never studied functional languages, but did cover Prolog. This has definitely created a deficit in my thinking and consideration about certain problems/languages. If that's any indication this matrix can give insight into the abilities of people who simply haven't covered certain topics.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#55Inexperienced programmers consult documentation a lot and the more experienced you become, the less you consult documentation? If this were true, the initialism "RTFM" would never have been coined.
Perhaps we just consult different documentation as time goes on... RTFM is most often directed at people who have an easy answer waiting for them in the documentation, but lazily asked a newsgroup/list/etc. to solve their problems instead as a first step.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#56This is someone's (very arbitrary) opinion in a grid. I hope you don't actually interview people. Figuring out someone's skill level is a soft science; it takes months after a hire to really know where someone is. Some people I know are great at fixing bugs but have narrow language experience. They're damn valuable. Others integrate well into teams and provide great product feedback. Where's that on here? Experience…
On the contrary, it is useful to have a comprehensive, substantive measure of technical skills. Having one does not preclude additional assessments, as you assume. I have been continually disappointed with the lack of extensiveness in technical interviews, as a candidate, but also as an interviewer when reviewing other interviewer assessments of potential candidates. I have yet to meet a programmer who doesn't believe they are very good at what they do and I believe this problem is due in large part to the shoot-from-the-hip approach that the industry takes at the interview stage.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#57This is someone's (very arbitrary) opinion in a grid. I hope you don't actually interview people. Figuring out someone's skill level is a soft science; it takes months after a hire to really know where someone is. Some people I know are great at fixing bugs but have narrow language experience. They're damn valuable. Others integrate well into teams and provide great product feedback. Where's that on here? Experience…
Some people have 10 years of experience. Others have 1 year of experience 10 times.
What a great quote. I wonder where it came from.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#58This is the stupidest thing I've seen on this topic. Are we trying to eliminate good candidates? Because that's what this will help with.
If programmers spent half the time they spent evaluating others on being better programmers we wouldn't have any problems.
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#59I'm not sure this has anything to do with "competency". When I was in high school, I implemented a kd-tree for a ray tracer using photon mapping. I knew that my n^2 algorithm was slow and that there was probably a better way, so I Googled and figured out how to write code for such a structure. Since I'm not a programmer (I'm a chemical engineer), I don't instantly know all of the orders of various algorithms (which a…
so programming is your hobby, have some fun while researching and solving some problem using some random solution found on the internet which might work or not professional coding is about something different
It may be a "hobby" but I've been doing it for 12 years, made money off of it, and would argue that I probably know more (theoretical and practical) than your average bachelor's grad in CS.
And I don't know where this "random info on the internet" came from. My knowledge comes from algorithm textbooks or papers from university websites.
Why the vitriol?
Re: Programmer Competency Matrix
#60This is someone's (very arbitrary) opinion in a grid. I hope you don't actually interview people. Figuring out someone's skill level is a soft science; it takes months after a hire to really know where someone is. Some people I know are great at fixing bugs but have narrow language experience. They're damn valuable. Others integrate well into teams and provide great product feedback. Where's that on here? Experience…
On the contrary, it is useful to have a comprehensive, substantive measure of technical skills. Having one does not preclude additional assessments, as you assume. I have been continually disappointed with the lack of extensiveness in technical interviews, as a candidate, but also as an interviewer when reviewing other interviewer assessments of potential candidates. I have yet to meet a programmer who doesn't believ…
The problem is that you're relying on interviews to hire someone who will hopefully work with you for years to come. Would you interview and pick your wife or husband in one day? Would a table like the above help?