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Good article. I like this focus on the end result--can the guy create software which works, is testable, is reliable? I'd heard of a good way of interviewing

Good article. I like this focus on the end result--can the guy create software which works, is testable, is reliable? I'd heard of a good way of interviewing an IT guy, like a network admin: You give them a machine with no OS, tell them to load it with whatever OS you usually use, join the network, and then do something pertinent to the job. If you're hiring an infrastructure guy for a startup you might ask him to create a machine with Ubuntu, Apache, Python, Ruby, Rails, Subversion, PostgreSQL, etc. If the dude can do all/most of it, and if you watch what he does (good use of the Internet? sensical file system setup? good eye for security?), then you might have a winner.

jey 19y ago
Yes, that IT test you cite is a good one, it actually test whether the guy can get real work done. The test that raganwald proposes doesn't actually test whether "the guy [can] create software which works, is testable, is reliable" -- it's testing whether they pass the test. Knowing your shit is one way to pass the test, but a lot more people pass the test by just memorizing test materials and learning the test instead of learning the subject. The situation might be improved if the whole Test Prep industry were made illegal. The part that saddens me the most is that the people who make the tests are also the ones selling the Test Prep materials to teach you how to circumvent the test! argh.