[ale] [SEMI-OT] Skills for programmers/engineers?

leam hall leamhall at gmail.com
Mon Jan 27 10:07:17 EST 2014


JD,

Length matters less than "signal to noise" ratio. Your note was great!

Can you provide a couple of the "Best Practices" and "Effective ??"
books? I've mostly used O'Reilly books but don't mind having a few
more.  :)

Leam

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 9:58 AM, JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:
> Sorry for the length.
>
> 1 programmer in a language and/or framework can speak with another for 10
> minutes and get a fairly accurate idea of their skill level, provided they are
> the higher skilled person with that language. The issue is when the blind are
> leading the blind ... which happens a-lot in corporations.
>
> Any place that hands me a test or asks me to program on THEIR computer the first
> time I sit behind it ... well, I've walked out of those places even after the
> interview went well. They were seeking a different sort of worker and I would
> not enjoy working in a place like that.
>
> Actual coding is a very, very, small part of any programming job, unless you
> work entirely alone. Knowing the other tools, testing, documentation and just
> fitting into the group matters 80% or more.
>
> Do you use TDD?
> Which VCS do you use?
> What editor do you prefer?
> What was the last design pattern that you used?
> Which language specific websites do you follow?
> Who was the best fictional space ship captain ever? Why? Books, movies, tv are
> fine.  (BTW, there isn't any wrong answer, just want to see some reasoning).
> Who was the best real space ship commander? (Good for NASA interviewees)
>
> The answer to these things tells me much more useful information than some paper
> test.
>
> I guess if writing public websites was my aim, then having a public portfolio
> might be useful. Never had a job like that.
>
> OOD/OOP are extremely useful skills, but the implementation language matters
> hugely. Most commonly needed design patterns already exist and have been created
> by people much smarter than me. Learned long ago to use them, not my own.
> Also a fan of "Best Practices" and the "Effective ??" book lines.  Those changed
> my life and made me a much, much, much better, more efficient, more elegant
> coder.  Of course, when just starting out, much of the best practices and
> effective-whatever books were over my head.
>
> The best advice I've ever gotten about coding was to never have any
> function/method longer than 1 screen, including the comments. Seeing all the
> code together helps illuminate mistakes.  If it takes too many comments to
> explain what a method does, it needs to be simplified.
>
>
> On 01/27/2014 09:03 AM, leam hall wrote:
>> A question has been popping up in a few places and your thoughts would
>> be welcome.
>>
>> If someone applies for a programming job in language "X"; what other
>> measurable skills and resume bullets should they have? For example:
>>
>> 1. Code in a public repository in language X
>> 2. Skill in version control
>> 3. If X is a web language, then a framework.
>> 4. If X is an object oriented language, then OOP skills.
>>
>> Not being a real programmer I'm trying to build my goal list and path.
>> Have also seen others who are  needing the same information.
>>
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