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What if we hired writers like we hire developers

hitesh.in

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Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#91

Post by dr42 »

einhverfr wrote: post #45
dr42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sound like the sort of thing an HR person would ask, not a developer. Commenting style. Seriously? What in all honesty do you expect someone to say, you must know you're going to get spoon fed a perfect answer just for asking such a dumb question.

Why do you say that? As a developer the comments are talking to me, not to the HR department and not to the computer. I want to know someone has thought about this area regarding the way bad comments get in the way of collaboration and the way good comments facilitate it. The point is that answers to these questions show the extent of introspection a programmer has regarding code. I am looking for thoughtful answers,…

"As a developer the comments are talking to me"

-- As a developer the code is talking to me.

It's a trivial question, comments are a chore that developers do because they provide someone who is later looking at and/or modifying their code with the knowledge about how it works in a way that isn't obvious from the code itself. Comments have morphed into more structured form with annotations that the IDE can make use of in some languages, but asking about comments in an interview is asking to get spoon fed what you want to hear.

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#92

Post by wisty »

atestu wrote: post #79
wisty wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the personality tests investment banks ask, and reverse the scoring. - How often do you go to parties? - Do you find it hard to make friends? - Are most people basically dishonest? - Do you get a buzz out of taking risks? etc.

I'm unfamiliar with these questions… Inverse the scoring? So what, going to parties is good or bad? How is this relevant to determine if you're good at your job?

Looking at typical integrity tests, they use either veiled or overt questions.

Overt questions are things like "are you dishonest".

Veiled questions try to be a bit sneakier. One of the factors they look for is risk taking behavior (going to parties, taking risks, etc). Traders, on the other hand should be keen to take risks.

Of course, there's a lot of other factors the veiled questions look for (asking whether other people are dishonest, looking at attitudes towards punishment) which aren't related to risk-taking.

Ironically, having a harsh attitude towards punishment can indicate dishonesty, possibly because dishonest people think other people are only deterred by the penalties.

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#93

Post by einhverfr »

dr42 wrote: post #91
einhverfr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? As a developer the comments are talking to me, not to the HR department and not to the computer. I want to know someone has thought about this area regarding the way bad comments get in the way of collaboration and the way good comments facilitate it. The point is that answers to these questions show the extent of introspection a programmer has regarding code. I am looking for thoughtful answers,…

"As a developer the comments are talking to me" -- As a developer the code is talking to me. It's a trivial question, comments are a chore that developers do because they provide someone who is later looking at and/or modifying their code with the knowledge about how it works in a way that isn't obvious from the code itself. Comments have morphed into more structured form with annotations that the IDE can make use of…

If you are explaining how your code works, shouldn't you be rewriting it so it is obvious rather than adding comments?

I don't know about you but I go after people in open source projects I help manage who write comments like that. Such comments add no value collaboration and indeed they get in the way of debugging more than they help. Folks debugging shouldn't be debugging based on comments but rather based on code.

But with clear code, comments are still helpful if they are used to describe difficult design decisions, or flag issues the developer sees down the road. "This is a kludge" is a much more helpful comment than "looping through an array of invoice lines so we know what to print." The first draws the developer's attention to the fact that an area of code may be unusually troublesome, while the second may be out of date, may be wrong, or may otherwise distract from debugging.

Of course there are function header comments, etc, but those don't really need to be under discussion.

You are right about the code needing to talk to you, but if you see comments as a way of explaining what your code does, then it's both a distraction to the next guy and a crutch for you.

Edit: I think this shows the point of the question and why the trivial spoon-fed answers are likely to be ones I would find inadequate.

Edit2: So the way I read your answer is "programmer just wants to get things done and doesn't mind writing non-clear code to do it, explaining it with comments. Suitable for a maintenance programming role but may in time grow into others."

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#94

Post by einhverfr »

mkr-hn wrote: post #68
einhverfr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidently the satire was too post-structuralist for him ;-).

I should pretend that I spotted the satire and was just acting as though it were serious for the purposes of discussion.

nah, you should pretend that your response was even more subtle satire and that nobody else got it ;-)

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#95

Post by einhverfr »

dr42 wrote: post #91
einhverfr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? As a developer the comments are talking to me, not to the HR department and not to the computer. I want to know someone has thought about this area regarding the way bad comments get in the way of collaboration and the way good comments facilitate it. The point is that answers to these questions show the extent of introspection a programmer has regarding code. I am looking for thoughtful answers,…

"As a developer the comments are talking to me" -- As a developer the code is talking to me. It's a trivial question, comments are a chore that developers do because they provide someone who is later looking at and/or modifying their code with the knowledge about how it works in a way that isn't obvious from the code itself. Comments have morphed into more structured form with annotations that the IDE can make use of…

Here's a good example btw of a comment that I found very helpful.

One day a number of years ago, I was reading through some part of the Linux source code (somewhere in the 2.4 series I think), and I was looking at a section of the TCP stack and came across a comment to the effect of "This is the max timeout value as specified in the RFC. This means FTP to Mars will never work"

Perfect comment. Besides making me laugh, it explains why a specific line is the way it is and explains that this may cause some issues where latency in the connection is high enough.

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#96

Post by rhizome »

nessus42 wrote: post #87
Lendal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I write code every day, but I don't save it and its been 20 years since I wrote any code for 'pleasure'. For pleasure I have sex, go to a symphony or swim in the ocean. Coding is something I do because I'm good at it and people will pay me for it. Further, I don't save code. I sell it. If I saved it then I would have to organize it, keep track of it and back it up. Why do that? I'm a programmer. Code I have written f…

> If I saved it then I would have to organize it, keep track of it and back it up. I really find this hard to swallow. It fails for me on so many counts. Firstly, code is small compared to just about anything else you might keep on your computer. All you have to do to preserve it is drop it in a directory you keep for that purpose. The code doesn't have to be organized in order to preserve it. If you back up your com…

Not against you personally, but I'm fascinated by how clear people are about aspects of candidates they don't want to hire. There are so many dealbreakers in this thread (in the main), it's like a dating site full of people who have a lot of difficulty finding partners (hint: all dating sites are full of people with dealbreakers).

Re: What if we hired writers like we hire developers

#97

Post by chii »

dagw wrote: post #56
chii wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Good grammar doesn't indicate a good writer, but bad grammar does indicate a bad one" that is not true at all - not knowing grammar well doesn't mean the writer has nothing good or creative, or worthwhile to say (or write about). Grammar is just a technicality to be overcome. Creative writing (as opposed to technical writing), is something that is not measured by the knowledge of the language, but by the knowledge o…

not knowing grammar well doesn't mean the writer has nothing good or creative, or worthwhile to say (or write about). In those cases the person in question (and his potential readers) would be much better served if he worked with a skilled ghost writer or co-author, rather than trying to write something on his own. Much in the way a scientist or mathematician, who only knows a little programming, is often better serv…

i see that as the way of the future. Aka, collaboration. Subjects these days are way to difficult to really master anyhting multi-disiplinary.
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