Programmer Competency Matrix • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#61

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #44

andrewvc wrote: post #31

This 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.

[deleted]

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#62

Post by zobzu » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:23 PM UTC

So in the end I figured out you can't be no good programmer if you don't know prolog.

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#63

Post by juddlyon » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:25 PM UTC

According to this, I'm a worthless newb.

Sounds pretty accurate. :)

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#64

Post by krapp » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

juddlyon wrote: post #63

According to this, I'm a worthless newb. Sounds pretty accurate. :)

I work with PHP and javascript so I already knew I was scum...

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#65

Post by ordinary » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #57

Swizec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

David Courtwright used a slightly different version of it to describe the Vietnam war: "we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times."

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#66

Post by rada » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #57

Swizec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here you are: http://ask.metafilter.com/62762/What-is-the-source-of-this-q...

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#67

Post by tptacek » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

rada wrote: post #66

tptacek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a great quote. I wonder where it came from.

Here you are: http://ask.metafilter.com/62762/What-is-the-source-of-this-q...

I read that; the answer seems to be "we're not sure".

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#68

Post by YokoZar » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #26

I'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…

Indeed, one does not need a CS degree to be a good programmer. This makes sense, cause somehow good CS degrees still seem to produce some people who can't program.

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#69

Post by kisielk » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 5:59 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #33

Inexperienced 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.

That one seems totally backwards to me. Experienced programmers should be able to read and understand more technical documentation such as language specs or RFCs and use it to figure out the answers to their problems. Inexperienced programmers are the ones that sak for help at the first sign of trouble.

Re: Programmer Competency Matrix

#70

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

[deleted]