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How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

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Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#41

Post by j_baker »

edw519 wrote: post #8

I know OP means well, but this post provides far more data about his own experience than anything that can be reliably used by the reader. What he calls "indicators", I call "co-factors". They may or may not accompany a given programmer, and they predict nothing. Generally speaking, good programmers are intelligent and do care about their work, but his positive indicators are much more a matter of personal preference…

I think a case can be made that even if someone who meets the author's criteria isn't a good programmer, they can probably become one with some mentoring. Of course, that probably isn't good for a business person looking to hire their first programmer. But then again, that person's in a pretty tricky spot to begin with.

Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#42

Post by j_baker »

rw140 wrote: post #28

How much weight would anyone here give to the "Started programming at university" criterion? It's one that is bugging me slightly because 1) it applies to me and 2) it's not something I can go back and change.

As with all things, it's about weighing the pros and cons. What you cite certainly is a negative, but you have to evaluate the whole candidate. I don't think that it's fair to expect that all good programmers meet all of the criteria presented.

Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#44

Post by richieb »

gridspy wrote: post #34
rw140 wrote: post #28

How much weight would anyone here give to the "Started programming at university" criterion? It's one that is bugging me slightly because 1) it applies to me and 2) it's not something I can go back and change.

Why did you wait until Uni to learn to program? Is that the point when you finally realised you had the freedom to do what you wanted in life? - If so, perhaps you are alright. Is that when someone told you that you needed a job, and programming looked well paid? - Perhaps not so good.

"Why did you wait until Uni to learn to program?"

Because at that time computers took entire floor of building and costs millions of dollars. By the time I got my hands on Apple II I was in graduate school...

Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#45

Post by mquander »

derefr wrote: post #31
mquander wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, colleges are not in the business of making admittance decisions based on whether you are a good programmer or not; secondly, 40 hours a week is the standard for being reasonably well-employed, which leaves a whole lot of hours for doing your own thing in life (not to mention the years you're in primary and secondary school, during which many programmers build a pretty passable CV of personal work.) I feel gu…

Okay, let me now be completely clear on how I interpreted your original statement: Let "an institution" be "a place where one may work on projects safe in the knowledge that one's base needs for food and shelter will be met." I(x) := x is an institution S(x) := x seeks to join an institution A(x,y) := x will accept y P(x) := x has completed a project 1. ∀xy( (S(x) ∧ I(y) ∧ A(y,x)) → P(x) ) 2. ∀xy∃z( (S(x) ∧ I(y) ∧ P(…

I admit that I smiled when I saw a big response to me with chunks of predicate logic in it.

Do you think the world would be better if programmers could not transition into the workforce until they had created something that no one had asked them to create?

I'm not sure if the world would be better. There's an overwhelming demand for competent programmers, and not anywhere close to enough supply to fill it. Is it better to lower our standards, resulting in shoddy and sometimes dangerously bad work, or to leave things undone?

However, for any given single institution, I am very confident that that institution would be better off hiring only people who had created things which nobody asked them to create. I agree that these are usually things which either nobody needs, or which are marketed poorly; but I don't see why that would indicate anything negative about the person in question (as far as the company is concerned.)

Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#46

Post by [deleted] »

azanar wrote: post #32
mquander wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, colleges are not in the business of making admittance decisions based on whether you are a good programmer or not; secondly, 40 hours a week is the standard for being reasonably well-employed, which leaves a whole lot of hours for doing your own thing in life (not to mention the years you're in primary and secondary school, during which many programmers build a pretty passable CV of personal work.) I feel gu…

I think this is trickier than just saying "do this, you obviously have time", but not for the reasons that derefr gave. I think you are assuming things that may not be true of all people, and then using that to draw very broad strokes which may have a steep rate of false predictions. Forty hours a week is an theoretical standard; it says little about the actual hours put in by programmers. Urban lore suggests the acc…

[deleted]

Re: How to recognise a good programmer (2007)

#47

Post by JosephAltmaier »

A "good programmer" hasn't been defined, has it? Does it mean an architect, designer, tester, integrator, debugger, coder? Each of these requires a different skill set. Very few have all of these skills. Some are nearly mutually exclusive. I know for instance that a good tester (worth their weight in gold) has almost completely orthogonal skills to a good developer. The tester focuses on regression, corner cases, code coverage, etc. The developer is sprinting toward a goal. I've had some limited experience hiring - 15-member teams for startups. My approach is to fill out the skill set, put them in a snug environment to promote communication and collaboration, and then monitor the heck out of the progress. My job then is to keep them on track, make sure all the holes and cracks are addressed, and mediate disagreement. I've repeatedly hired (different startups) a plodding, methodical, university-educated, by-the-book programmer to crank out database schema with its 200-plus-dialog query frontends. And an inspired, chaotic, brilliant, chronically sleep-deprived developer to write the 100,000+ lines of code a year we needed to get to the next funding stage. In the same team. In the right environment these guys even learned to respect and admire each other.
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