21–30 of 133 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, when kids don't even know that the latest fad was originally popularised by Apple , we have entered postmodern hipsterdom.
Are you referring to MVC in iOS programming? I would attribute the current popularity of MVC to Rails.
The problem with using stack overflow as your dataset is most of the programmers on the site are interested in expending their technical knowledge. So if 50% of "young" programmers are on stack overflow but only 20% of "old" programmers are on stack you get results that don't indicate the actual population. The only thing we can actually gather from the data is that with "programmers on stack overflow older is wiser.…
Hire an individual. Don't hire an old person or a young person or a guy or a girl or a... just.. don't. An individual at age 40 is generally more qualified than he or she was at age 25. However, absent of other context the fact that one individual is 25 and another is 40 has no bearing on the prediction of whether the one individual or the other is a better fit for a technical role. Go for the individual who can show…
Being at least an average coder is a prerequisite to leading a team of coders. A team lead that can't code is like an Army officer that can't pass his physical tests or clean his rifle. He will not have the respect of the rank and file. A team lead (as opposed to a project manager) that can't code is doomed. (Notice I don't mention language, a good programmer can be coding in something new within a week or maybe two…
> a good programmer can be coding in something new within a week or maybe two and after a couple of months should be completely fluent.
It's a risky choice.
The project we were working on had very, very heavy emphasis on idiomatic Java. In this situation a good manager would need to recognize the deficit in the prospective lead and only ever accept the candidate if they have a rock-solid track record of success, if the team is proficient enough with the language that they can fill in the architect's gaps, and most importantly, if the team is on board.
Unless you have a very mature team that has bought into the leadership of this individual, deficit in language skills might be perceived as a deficit in overall skill, and the team will have difficulty accepting the new leadership.
[Edit: My very, very strong preference is to never hire leads. Hire team members, pay them what they're worth with frequent raises for good performance, and let the team decide who does what.]
I am one of the older'ish programmers One day a young programmer flies into the office talking about the new MVC frameworks and how it would revolutionize how we write programs. He was mystified when I explained how MVC works to him without even looking at what framework he was ranting about. He asked how I knew? I told him it was invented at PARC in the 70's and I've used them starting in 1995 with the MFC C++ for d…
Around 9 years ago...
Me: We can abstract most of that data access with a simple table oriented orm. Not all of it, but a good 80%.
Younger Developer: Nope, That is what record sets are for, it is right here in the Microsoft docs (pointing to the ado api)
...
5 years later, he had moved to a different company, and I received a phone call from him: Just called to say that now I understand what you wanted and how it is simpler.
Me: Then I failed to communicate properly. What could I have say that would have make you give it a chance?
Him: Nothing, I needed to learn it the hard way.
Experience teach.
A few months ago, working with very young dev. team.
Tech lead (late 20s): We need to do all using TDD, if it is not TDD we don't touch it.
Me: Agree, but TDD is one of several tools to DDD; the developer needs to understand what its building, not just that all checks are in green.
Tech Lead: The devs only need the proper test.
Now they drop the core calculations from the project because they couldn't understand them by just looking at the tests, I got task with that, and a salary increase. And some how the tech lead think it is unfair because he "gets" Git and Resharper much better than me.
Aaawww, the luxury of being young.
Yes, hire an individule that is excited and willing to learn new things and keep up with this crazy industry the way others keep up with sports, politics, and whatnot ;)
There is an annoying pathology at work though. During the 90's most experienced developers were incentivised to move into management or sales roles. Many of the management/sales roles these developers moved into have disappeared.
There is a population of older software developers who kept coding through the late 90's and early 00's who are almost invariably awesome.
There is also population of older developers who left day to day coding work and have seen their employment prospects diminish who are trying to get back into development. This is a more difficult population to work with.