it's all in the code. ask to see some large-scale code samples. if they can't provide any (which is understandable, as these are often the property of former e

it's all in the code. ask to see some large-scale code samples. if they can't provide any (which is understandable, as these are often the property of former employers; and a lot of people who lead real lives don't have a lot of spare time to work on open source projects), just see how they actually do on an actual, real, end-to-end project. it doesn't even have to be terribly deep or complicated. but the main thing is, it should be VERY non-sexy. the unsexier, the better. because that's what distinguishes the (supposedly) clever ones from the careful ones: they just don't have the patience or willingness to "sully" themselves for the sake of, you know, that "other 90%". particularly for something that just isn't all that cool, and that they can't get bragging rights for. so you'll find that their stuff works, umm, "mostly." except for this or that (frequently and naturally occurring) corner case. and for all the extra manual housekeeping it requires. oh and that it also just tends to break. a lot. (to which they'll always be able to say, "oh, I'll just fix that"... for as long as they're around, that is.) and for the fact that you'll just be able to see that everything's done in a slapdash, one-off way that's hard to read or generalize. and I DON'T mean in the pragmatic, "worse is better" sense; but in the fricken' careless, "I'm too good for this gruntwork" sense. ultimately the real distinction isn't clever v. careful; the smarter programmers, in my experience, are always, without exception, also the very careful ones. it's more a distinction between those who talk -- and like to get credit for projects that are really collective efforts -- and those who simply do (and take pride and satisfaction in simply doing it very, very well.)