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If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

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Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#31

Post by DanielBMarkham »

jerf wrote: post #28
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

It's worse than that. The CHAOS study, among others, shows that 80%+ of all software projects are viewed as failures by the people who pay for them. Meanwhile you come onto boards like HN or reddit and instead of talking about how to establish and keep trust with the folks writing the checks, everybody's talking frameworks and tools. So picture a subdivision where 80% of the houses are broken down, priced too high, i…

A: "Dude, have you seen this Nail-o-Matic 2000 nailgun?" B: "No. It looks totally awesome, it's so shiny and chrome..." A: "Yeah, it's the latest thing, I picked it up last night. Let's see how it does on this roof..." A puts a shingle down and shoots a nail in. The nail rips through the shingle, blasts a 2-inch diameter hole in the roof and embeds itself firmly into the floor of the second story. B: "Whoa, that's AW…

A. You know? What we really should do is get that new Blast-O-Matic bulldozer I have parked outside and tear all this crap down and start over! I saw a video on YouTube last night that said if we built houses using silly putty that they were impermeable to weather!

B. That's a great idea. Does it work with the Nail-o-Matic?

A. I don't see why not. They are both made of atoms.

C. Hang on guys. That's not going to work. What am I thinking?

A. What do you mean?

C. Dude. We have to draw pictures of the house first! I mean without pictures? We're just throwing stuff together. Our problem all along is that we haven't drawn enough pictures.

B. So if we draw enough pictures, then can we use the Blast-O-Matic, the Nail-O-Matic, and the silly putty?

C. Sure! I don't see why not. If we spend enough time drawing diagrams, dang near anything should be possible. At least on the diagram. Let me just pull out this circuit diagram for the Pentium CPU and we'll see how it relates to the average density of silly putty over time...

(B runs out and begins bulldozing house while A and C huddle over a blueprint with their slide rules)

B. Hey guys! You're doing a great job! Let me know when you're ready. I'll just go ahead and get started with the bulldozing.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#32

Post by iopq »

alricb wrote: post #11

Are interview questions this irrelevant? Because there are relevant questions you could ask a carpenter in an interview, like if they've worked with I-joists, whether they know what a nailing schedule is, whether they're familiar with a "California corner", their health and safety knowledge, etc.

I was interviewing for a webdev position and they had me solve some kind of a crossword puzzle interview question. Clearly if I just practiced messing around with double indexed arrays I would have passed it. But seriously, webdev is mostly about making controllers and interfacing the database. NOTHING to do with how fast I can implement some algorithm.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#33

Post by raverbashing »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

It's worse than that. The CHAOS study, among others, shows that 80%+ of all software projects are viewed as failures by the people who pay for them. Meanwhile you come onto boards like HN or reddit and instead of talking about how to establish and keep trust with the folks writing the checks, everybody's talking frameworks and tools. So picture a subdivision where 80% of the houses are broken down, priced too high, i…

There's also the issue of people being familiar with houses and their limitations, and not asking for a 5 storey house in a 10m x 10m terrain, or that the house automatically lets them in without using keys, or that they want a mansion for 10x less the needed budget

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#34

Post by rprospero »

alricb wrote: post #11

Are interview questions this irrelevant? Because there are relevant questions you could ask a carpenter in an interview, like if they've worked with I-joists, whether they know what a nailing schedule is, whether they're familiar with a "California corner", their health and safety knowledge, etc.

If you did ask about I-joists, there'd be a series of articles on Carpentry News complaining about how you ask overly academic interview questions. Carpenters with "fifteen years of experience" would talk about how they haven't made a single I-joist since they were an apprentice. If they ever needed to make a "California Corner", they'd just look it up on YouTube and it's pointless to expect them to know it off the top of their head.

They'd then explain that what you really should be asking in the interview is a series of questions about the specific wavelengths of light reflected by different brands of brown paint, because painting things brown is 95% of what a carpenter does and the rest is just wood-gluing together prefab parts from the factory.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#36

Post by sopooneo »

belorn wrote: post #30

A clear difference between a carpenter and a programmer is the liability inherent in the work. A carpenter can't just produce a minimum viable product that just happens to break down as soon as a bird land on it, or leaks water as if it was constructed like a sieve. Hiring a carpenter is a comparable safe thing to do, as the worst thing a lawful carpenter can do is overcharge his clients/employer. A programmer on oth…

Your logic makes sense, but it seems like every high school I've ever been in or heard about that had just recently been built leaked rain like a sieve.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#37

Post by weixiyen »

seanwilson wrote: post #24
henrik_w wrote: post #22

"Well, I’m a carpenter, so I’ve worked with all kinds of wood, you know, and there are some differences, but I think if you’re a good carpenter …" In my experience, a good programmer in one language is very likely a good programmer in another language as well. There are a lot more commonalities than some people realize. That's the reason why I'm sceptical of claims such as "the programmer knowledge half-life is X yea…

I'd rather hire a programmer that knew many languages than one who only knew one language really well though. Once you've learned a few frameworks and languages, you get much better at picking up new ones quickly because you've seen the same concepts somewhere else already.

I've always gone for the ones who really knew one language inside and out. The reason is actually very simple, they have demonstrated exceptional skill to dive deep into one language, so they should be able to do the same in another language.

The jack-of-all-trades people usually are much riskier hires as they don't always understand how deep they can go in any particular language, thus are unable to fully assess what they don't know, and require much more guidance as a result.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#38

Post by italophil »

stillsut wrote: post #17

This actually will happen if you speak with an HR rep for insurance predictive modelling: -So do you have experience with SAS? -Yes, but mostly I model in R. They are sister languages. -So how much SAS, how much R? -Mostly R as it is widely held to be a superior language -But SAS you can do more with! -Ahh, if Big-Famous-Tech-Company-X wanted to do stat modelling they use R, not SAS. Again, anyone who does statistica…

If they want SAS that is their choice.

It's like asking a carpenter to built a cupboard and he answers: "I'd rather build a shelf, it will hold your dishes just as well."

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#39

Post by TamDenholm »

spiralpolitik wrote: post #27

Accurate, but missed the part where the carpenter is asked to build a cabinet by drawing it on the whiteboard.

Yeah exactly, was once given pencil and paper and asked to write some code. That was early on in my career, so even though i knew it was ridiculous, i didnt have enough confidence to tell them they're being idiots. At this point in my career however, i'm far more jaded about stupid interview techniques like that and will refuse to do them unless provided with a computer.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

#40

Post by alexbecker »

henrik_w wrote: post #22

"Well, I’m a carpenter, so I’ve worked with all kinds of wood, you know, and there are some differences, but I think if you’re a good carpenter …" In my experience, a good programmer in one language is very likely a good programmer in another language as well. There are a lot more commonalities than some people realize. That's the reason why I'm sceptical of claims such as "the programmer knowledge half-life is X yea…

I think that programmer knowledge has a short half-life, but not so much programmer skill. I agree that programming well in language X and programming well in language Y are very similar (unless perhaps X and Y use radically different paradigms), because programming well is a skill. But there is language specific knowledge you need to pick up; it's just relatively fast to learn and you can bridge the gap with references.
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