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I'm skeptical. There's always a set of programmers who sound erudite because they are erudite. It's typically not that easy to fake being erudite, so it natur
by steego 9y ago
I'm skeptical.
There's always a set of programmers who sound erudite because they are erudite. It's typically not that easy to fake being erudite, so it naturally follows that programmers who sound and behave like they're competent are usually competent.
A simple strategy would to always select from that pool. It might even be a relatively optimal strategy too if you account the time and effort to interview people.
However, my experience has show me that assumption has been wrong on a number of occasions. People have both surprised me and disappointed me. I wish I could say it's been the rare case, but it's happened a lot more than I would have liked.
I've considered I'm not the best judge of people, but I can't help but notice a lot of my colleagues aren't the best either. Some are and I envy their talents to notice some set of heuristics I haven't picked up yet.
- koverstreet 9y agoIt's not about being erudite, or knowing lots of things. What you pick up on when you're having a conversation with another programmer about writing code is whether or not they give a crap about their craft and doing it well, and what kinds of things they think about and worry about in their code and the code they work with. The really good programmers are the ones who want to make the world of software a better place, without concern for ego or who wrote what.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoThank you koverstreet for putting it into words better than I could.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoWhenever I've had a problem with a hire, it has never been a competence problem. If I gave those people code problems, they would have knocked them out of the park, I still would have hired them, and I still would have had the problem.