Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

jasonbock.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 123 posts

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#41

Post by raghava »

martijn_himself wrote: post #3

Could be updated: Interviewer: Could you give us a couple of examples of carpentry projects you have completed in your spare time, and do you have a portfolio of projects you have worked on outside of your day-to-day job? Carpenter: Uhm, what do you mean? Interviewer: I mean like carpentry in your community, or a project you've completed to hone your skills outside work? Carpenter: Oh, I am usually quite tired of ham…

  Interviewer: Also, do you have any full stack experience?
  
  Carpenter: Yeah, I guess.

  Interviewer: How quickly would you adapt to using a new tool framework that comes out in the market?
  
  Carpenter: I would rather choose to use the tools that I have honed my skills in and am good at.
  
  Interviewer: But, considering the toolbase that our org uses, our other carpenter say that some new kit/framework comes out every other day and they all keep up. I think that toolbench is called JS in short.
  
  Carpenter: ...
  
  Interviewer: Also, how about the fragile methodology, any experience in that?
  
  Carpenter: Yeah, I guess.
But strictly speaking, considering that the outcome from both disciplines carpentry and software development are on opposite sides of tangibility, a straight up comparison isn't really helpful, to both disciplines.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#42

Post by readittwice »

cdevs wrote: post #15

I wish we were only hiring experienced developers, hiring right out of school and having a manager that only wants experience out of school people is insane. Do you know what oop is? Have you used git? Have you ever indexed a table column to speed up queries? Any MVC experience? How comfortable are you with the language ? Do you know anything about sql injection? Have you used the inspector on a web browser before? G…

I do think it's a good thing they hire people right after school, just not exclusively. Are they graduating from college or some other school?

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#43

Post by reificator »

Chris2048 wrote: post #25
rootlocus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is software. The paradigms are the same. The languages have the same roots. What is culture for a programming language anyways? Sure, the tools and frameworks are different, and every language has it's own quirks and uniqueness but they're not as different as you make it sound. If a developer is skilled, these are small differences.

> The paradigms are the same So Clojure, Java, Javascript, Haskell and Ruby are all basically the same? I think damage can be done hammering different languages into the same methodologies.. > If a developer is skilled You suggest skill is generic. If a programmer is smart they can learn new paradigms. Projecting the paradigms they are used to onto new domains can produce problems, least of all the standardisation.

Of course Java and Javascript are the same, they've got the same name.

It's just like grapes and grapefruit. Completely indistinguishable from one another.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#44

Post by noway421 »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #18

Interviewer: since you have experience working with wood, show us how you would implement photosynthesis on this whiteboard... Or Interviewer: what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? Or Interviewer: A carpenter? We were looking more for a mahogany-scientist or a pine-wizard. Are…

> what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested?

that's actually kinda fun!

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#46

Post by rootlocus »

Chris2048 wrote: post #25
rootlocus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is software. The paradigms are the same. The languages have the same roots. What is culture for a programming language anyways? Sure, the tools and frameworks are different, and every language has it's own quirks and uniqueness but they're not as different as you make it sound. If a developer is skilled, these are small differences.

> The paradigms are the same So Clojure, Java, Javascript, Haskell and Ruby are all basically the same? I think damage can be done hammering different languages into the same methodologies.. > If a developer is skilled You suggest skill is generic. If a programmer is smart they can learn new paradigms. Projecting the paradigms they are used to onto new domains can produce problems, least of all the standardisation.

> So Clojure, Java, Javascript, Haskell and Ruby are all basically the same?

Nice try, but we were talking about PHP and Java. Also, for instance, functional paradigm is the same for all functional languages, which is what I meant in the first place.

> You suggest skill is generic.

I'm suggesting the developer understands the OOP paradigm, knows about design patterns and isn't confused by the small differences in syntax or how much a language borrows from each paradigm. Two languages using the same paradigm are closer to each other, regardless of how different their syntaxes may be.

> Projecting the paradigms they are used to onto new domains can produce problems

That's completely true, but I'm not going to write generic comments that cover every case. I'm replying to someone comparing PHP to Java. It's my understanding the PHP is mostly OOP.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#47

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Interviewer: So you'd like to be a CEO? Candidate: Yes Interviewer: And you've worked as a CEO before? Candidate: Yes, three times. All those companies lost market share, worker satisfaction, and credibility. But the share price increased - at least until after I left. Interviewer: Great! See you for a couple hours on Monday. What time after lunch works for you?

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#48

Post by rootlocus »

organsnyder wrote: post #34
rootlocus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is software. The paradigms are the same. The languages have the same roots. What is culture for a programming language anyways? Sure, the tools and frameworks are different, and every language has it's own quirks and uniqueness but they're not as different as you make it sound. If a developer is skilled, these are small differences.

I think that the differences are bigger for inexperienced developers (and experienced ones who don't try to understand the theory underlying their work). A novice PHP developer will (or at least would have 5 years ago) create a messy script with interspersed HTML and PHP, a SQL injection vulnerability or two, and little code organization. A novice Java developer will implement a bunch of patterns they don't understan…

This is what I meant in my last sentence, thank you for clarifying.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#49

Post by emerongi »

martijn_himself wrote: post #29
sgift wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be pretty cool if programmers could show their day job programs the way a carpenter can say "I build this" and people could look at it to see its quality. Unfortunately, this is often not possible.

I agree reality is probably more subtle that this, but I do feel that there is too much emphasis on public repositories in application processes. It's probably more common for recent graduates to have public repositories than for the majority of senior devs. Then again I'm sure there are other pressures graduates have to deal with that senior devs don't.

Too much emphasis? Most recent graduates don't even have a GitHub profile. They get jobs because they graduated. It's totally fine. If you did not graduate, you better have some projects to show though.

Re: If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers (2004)

#50

Post by billchan »

Interviewer: Are you a good team player? You need to lead junior carpenters, communicate with our going-to-leave carpenters for the handover, and make sure everything in harmony.

Carpenter: Yes, I have experience to be a naughty apprentice and cursing the old carpenters who forgot the anti termite treatment.

Post reply on HN