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Ask HN: Would you employ a C# programmer who pronounces it "see hash"?

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Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a C# programmer who pronounces it "see hash"?

#11

Post by lukesandberg »

lzw wrote: post #4

You should be able to evaluate someone's ability to program without ever asking them to write any code, or without them ever having even heard of the language you're going to have them programming in. I've never met a programming language that I couldn't learn and be competent at in about a week. Everything about programming has nothing to do with particular languages. The "you need 5 years of java experience" is the…

I largely agree, competent programmers should be able to pick up new tech/languages/tools fairly quickly....

However i think in order to evaluate someones ability to program, you do need to ask them to program. The language may not matter too much but the ability to think coherently and organize a solution is a skill that can't get easily picked up in a week.

Re: Ask HN: Would you employ a C# programmer who pronounces it "see hash"?

#13

Post by lzw »

lukesandberg wrote: post #11
lzw wrote: post #4

You should be able to evaluate someone's ability to program without ever asking them to write any code, or without them ever having even heard of the language you're going to have them programming in. I've never met a programming language that I couldn't learn and be competent at in about a week. Everything about programming has nothing to do with particular languages. The "you need 5 years of java experience" is the…

I largely agree, competent programmers should be able to pick up new tech/languages/tools fairly quickly.... However i think in order to evaluate someones ability to program, you do need to ask them to program. The language may not matter too much but the ability to think coherently and organize a solution is a skill that can't get easily picked up in a week.

If you ask them to write code on a whiteboard you are testing their ability to work while nervous without their common tools handy... when left with someone staring at them silently and expectantly.

I have had great success determining the quality of programmers just by talking to them. I've also found that the job (back when I worked for others) that I got where they asked me to write programs for them turned out to be the most crappy, poorly run businesses. But the ones that just talked to me, and determined I was a good programmer from that, turned out to be the best.

The very best told me by the end of the interview that they were going to make an offer. (I understand that offers take time to prepare, run by legal or whatever.)

The entire industries recruiting system is completely broken and inefficient.

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