[ale] .NET considered harmful

Thu Mar 31 11:21:09 EDT 2011

If the shop was Linux and the candidate had a tom of C# and VisualBasic...

If the shop was all Microsoft and the candidate was a Linux kernel
contributor or a GNU fellow...

Bad for one may be good for another.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Brian Schenken
<brian.schenken at gmail.com>wrote:

> Maybe if the article were "Why programmers shouldn't put all their eggs in
> one basket", but this was "Why we don’t hire .NET programmers".   Through
> the article he makes some good points, but his opinions of .net pollute his
> arguments.  My point in previous posts is that if he is looking for folks
> who are happy to tinker with any tech - his own attitude will be an
> obstacle.  He wrote a followup article he links to at the top where he trys
> to be less of an ass, but IMHO just demonstrates that he's not capable of
> stopping.  So, he won't get much more attention from me...
>
> ...but, I was pondering - I wonder if there are some technologies that
> really should raise red flags.  If you were hiring, and you need someone you
> can trust to create good solutions, are there technologies out there that
> might scare you off?  I can think of a couple that I'd have hard time
> imagining  a good case for.  Lolcode... mono...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:29 AM, Wolf Halton <wolf at wolfhalton.info> wrote:
>
>>  Did you look at the jobs section of their site?  Jerald, I think you are
>> on target.  These people want to hire creatives who create in lots of ways.
>>
>>
>> On 03/29/2011 09:09 AM, Jerald Sheets wrote:
>>
>> Some of this falls under the failure of education, though.
>>
>>  I worked at a small webhosting concern in Baton Rouge that eventually
>> got to the point that we refused to hire graduates from LSU's CS department
>> for much the same reasons.
>>
>>  LSU was turning out Pascal programmers in 1996 with no knowledge of
>> networks (but a limited understanding of protocols) and couldn't
>> troubleshoot anything.  They could program you under the table in Pascal,
>> but had no knowledge of any other arena of programming (Assembler?  VB?
>> C?...these were reserved for engineering majors and were unavailable to CS
>> students except as electives)  Sure, with some work they could pick up the
>> ColdFusion work and the PHP work our developers were doing, but chances were
>> slim (based on our experience).  It had been proven time and time again they
>> were one-trick ponies with blinders on, unwilling to change and unable to be
>> employed if they didn't...USUALLY demanding huge salaries just because they
>> graduated college.
>>
>>  I think the issue more lies in substance.
>>
>>  For instance, I'm a SysAdmin.  I have done a fair amount of ksh/bash
>> and, thanks to Weather.com, was introduced to Perl and have been very
>> happy with it since.
>>
>>  If I come to you for a Sysadmin job, one of the primary distinguishing
>> characteristics of a "Senior" level admin is that they have a language or
>> two to their credit.  No, not necessarily C or Pascal (although they may),
>> but you certainly expect there to be Perl, Shell, perhaps Python, maybe even
>> PHP and other "admin-y" sort of qualifications on there.  If I didn't,
>> wouldn't you consider something to be not quite right?
>>
>>  All I think the author is saying is, if I've got a person who is a
>> true-blue programmer, a "maker of things", chances are extremely good they
>> will have core languages where the sky is the limit, and if they really love
>> programming and do it all the time, will ultimately become annoyed at
>> "cookie-cutter" environments that lay everything out in pre-fabricated ways.
>>  Not because those ways are particularly *bad *but because it isn't the
>> nature of a programmer of the type they are searching for.  One who works
>> from the ground up in core programming rather than platform development.
>>  There is a difference, and it is not small.
>>
>>  I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but I am saying I can see where he's
>> coming from and its not all that strange.
>>
>>  When we hire systems people, we look for guys that dig Linux/UNIX.
>>  Those who have a little network at home and are versed in multiple flavors
>> of the beast.  Those who belong to clubs and have friends in the business;
>> who go to seminars or installfests because it's fun and this is as much
>> their hobby as it is their career.  These guys will ultimately be more
>> valuable, informed, happy, and long-lived in the position than someone who
>> isn't of this ilk, and only got into UNIX because it can "pay the bills".
>>
>>  That, unless I'm sorely mistaken, is what he's looking for at his
>> company.  It has very little to do with .NET or Microsoft and very much to
>> do with the character of the people he's looking for.
>>
>>
>>   #!/jerald
>> Linux User #183003
>> Ubuntu User #32648
>> Public GPG Key:  http://questy.org/js.asc
>> Geek Code:  http://questy.org/code
>>
>>  On Mar 29, 2011, at 2:33 AM, Brian Schenken wrote:
>>
>>  No wordsmithery could make his silly prejudice reasonable.  He may be
>> looking for what you accept is a different breed, but he needs to
>> figure out how to articulate it without delving into his own emotional
>> bias.  Having written in  .net is not evidence of some sort of
>> weakness.
>>
>> Yeah, there's a tremendous market for worthless certs that has
>> polluted IT's and other's talent pools.  The quality of education out
>> there has nothing to do with the value of any given technology.
>> That's apples and oranges...
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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