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This 'irritating problem' of people claiming that they know _____ when they actually don't, is best solved with... drum roll... Source code. Don't tell me you k

This 'irritating problem' of people claiming that they know _____ when they actually don't, is best solved with... drum roll... Source code. Don't tell me you know _____, show me what you did with _____. Today that problem can be solved with Github, Sourceforge, Google Code or whatever. A decade ago I remember asking for a job as a Java developer by taking the source code for a Scheme interpreter written in Java into the interview. A checklist of features is a nice starting point for things to look for for when learning, but there is no substitute for solving problems with the language. Thus, one day you will be able to say what you did with it, rather than which features you understand. So my feedback for the author is this: Write a followup suggesting some sample projects to write, organized by level of difficulty, just as you've organized language features by difficulty. The projects shouldn't be large, just things that will tend to force the developer into an in-depth understanding of one or more of the advanced features you have suggested. For example... You mentioned timers. What could/should I build if I want some experience using timers?

mwbiz 16y ago
Thanks Ragan, I completely agree with you and this is one of the first things that I do in an interview.
- telemachos 16y ago
  This is totally off topic, but there's no 'Ragan' (and he's not Mr. Wald either). From one of his sites: the answer to an infrequently asked question Raganwald is my own made-up variation on the Norse name Ragnvald, which is the origin of the Norman name Reginald (if you go back to back to Sanskrit, you find that Ragnvald is loosely related to the Indian name Raj). Braythwayt is a very rare spelling for my surname. I first encountered “Braythwayt” in a P.G. Wodehouse short story when the hapless Bingo Little abandons Honoria Glossop to chivvy Daphne Braythwayt about, and Honoria assumes Bertie loves her and accepts what she thinks is his implied proposal… But perhaps you should read that story for yourself.[1] I suppose this jumps out at me because I'm not actually Telemachos (and my last name isn't actually "Son of Odysseus"). [1] http://reginald.braythwayt.com/ http://reginald.braythwayt.com/
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Very true, although I have no objection to the nickname "Ragan." Call me anything you like, as long as you don't call me late for dinner :-)
nxn 16y ago
"This 'irritating problem' of people claiming that they know _____ when they actually don't, is best solved with... drum roll... Source code. Don't tell me you know _____, show me what you did with _____. Today that problem can be solved with Github, Sourceforge, Google Code or whatever." That isn't really a complete solution to the problem, take my situation as an example: I've been working as a C# dev for some years now, but since the company I worked for ended up owning all the code, and since almost all the applications I helped create for them are internal, I have nothing to really show for it. Why don't I have any side projects I've done with C#? It's just simply not my first choice of language for personal projects due to the fact I have to use it so much on a daily basis; instead, I tend to go with lesser known languages that I'm certainly not as familiar with just because it makes writing some of the code a little more exciting. In essence, I'm claiming to know the language, but the only proof I can give is saying "Well, I used it daily for X amount of time".
- raganwald 16y ago
  This came up a while back, and I feel your pain. That Java job I told you about? All the Java and C++ code now belongs to Quest, who bought my employer. And I did some good work on ING Direct (USA), but I can't show that to you, either. My wife once bought a bunch of postcards from a printer to promote her business as a photographer. Right on their price list was a charge for a credit waiver. basically, every postcard had to have a small "Printed by FooCorp 1-800-888-8888" on it. If you didn't want that, you paid extra. I have reached the point where I feel the same way about the code I write. Naturally, nobody can see trade secrets. But if there's a portion of the code that is not a trade secret, perhaps a Rails or jQuery plugin that gets developed along the way, I want that open sourced. If the answer is "No, we want to own everything 100%," I need to make extra money to make up for the fact that I am going to go dark, just as that printer needs to charge extra money to make up for the lost advertising opportunity.
  - bergie 16y ago
    Our employment contracts actually require us to open source everything our hackers build (except some client-specific configurations or templates of course)

mwbiz 16y ago

Thanks Ragan, I completely agree with you and this is one of the first things that I do in an interview.

telemachos 16y ago
This is totally off topic, but there's no 'Ragan' (and he's not Mr. Wald either). From one of his sites: the answer to an infrequently asked question Raganwald is my own made-up variation on the Norse name Ragnvald, which is the origin of the Norman name Reginald (if you go back to back to Sanskrit, you find that Ragnvald is loosely related to the Indian name Raj). Braythwayt is a very rare spelling for my surname. I first encountered “Braythwayt” in a P.G. Wodehouse short story when the hapless Bingo Little abandons Honoria Glossop to chivvy Daphne Braythwayt about, and Honoria assumes Bertie loves her and accepts what she thinks is his implied proposal… But perhaps you should read that story for yourself.[1] I suppose this jumps out at me because I'm not actually Telemachos (and my last name isn't actually "Son of Odysseus"). [1] http://reginald.braythwayt.com/ http://reginald.braythwayt.com/
- raganwald 16y ago
  Very true, although I have no objection to the nickname "Ragan." Call me anything you like, as long as you don't call me late for dinner :-)

nxn 16y ago

"This 'irritating problem' of people claiming that they know _____ when they actually don't, is best solved with... drum roll... Source code. Don't tell me you know _____, show me what you did with _____. Today that problem can be solved with Github, Sourceforge, Google Code or whatever." That isn't really a complete solution to the problem, take my situation as an example: I've been working as a C# dev for some years now, but since the company I worked for ended up owning all the code, and since almost all the applications I helped create for them are internal, I have nothing to really show for it. Why don't I have any side projects I've done with C#? It's just simply not my first choice of language for personal projects due to the fact I have to use it so much on a daily basis; instead, I tend to go with lesser known languages that I'm certainly not as familiar with just because it makes writing some of the code a little more exciting. In essence, I'm claiming to know the language, but the only proof I can give is saying "Well, I used it daily for X amount of time".

raganwald 16y ago
This came up a while back, and I feel your pain. That Java job I told you about? All the Java and C++ code now belongs to Quest, who bought my employer. And I did some good work on ING Direct (USA), but I can't show that to you, either. My wife once bought a bunch of postcards from a printer to promote her business as a photographer. Right on their price list was a charge for a credit waiver. basically, every postcard had to have a small "Printed by FooCorp 1-800-888-8888" on it. If you didn't want that, you paid extra. I have reached the point where I feel the same way about the code I write. Naturally, nobody can see trade secrets. But if there's a portion of the code that is not a trade secret, perhaps a Rails or jQuery plugin that gets developed along the way, I want that open sourced. If the answer is "No, we want to own everything 100%," I need to make extra money to make up for the fact that I am going to go dark, just as that printer needs to charge extra money to make up for the lost advertising opportunity.
- bergie 16y ago
  Our employment contracts actually require us to open source everything our hackers build (except some client-specific configurations or templates of course)