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Not iOS, but I'm fairly confident I could be productive in an Android codebase in a week. The only reason I don't think I could do iOS is because I'd need to u

by doix 3y ago

Not iOS, but I'm fairly confident I could be productive in an Android codebase in a week. The only reason I don't think I could do iOS is because I'd need to use a OSX, and I think it would take me longer to become productive in OSX. It also depends on what you mean by "productive", would I want to lead a team to create a new app from scratch? Probably not. Go into an existing app and start fixing bugs and creating new features? Sure. I did a trial week before joining my current gig full-time. I had pretty much no typescript experience, came into a large TS react/nodejs app and had a pull request on the 2nd day for a new feature. I wouldn't try to work on a Haskell or OCaml codebase, they are different enough that I'm not confident I could pick them up quickly. But most mainstream languages are similar enough that it really shouldn't be that hard to pick them up and be productive.

scarface_74 3y ago
> It also depends on what you mean by "productive", would I want to lead a team to create a new app from scratch? Probably not. Go into an existing app and start fixing bugs and creating new features? Sure. As someone with experience, are you actually applying for jobs where you would just be pulling stories off the board doing “feature work”? And let’s take your example. What’s the chance of me being productively able to create a feature in a Typescript/React app seeing that I haven’t done front end work since 2015 and even then it was server side rendering with ASP.Net MVC and bootstrap.
- doix 3y ago
  > As someone with experience, are you actually applying for jobs where you would just be pulling stories off the board doing “feature work”? I dislike the whole Agile stories/points/sprints thing, so probably not those jobs. But if you're asking if I'm applying to jobs where I write code, then yep! I love writing code and building things. > And let’s take your example. What’s the chance of me being productively able to create a feature in a Typescript/React app seeing that I haven’t done front end work since 2015 and even then it was server side rendering with ASP.Net MVC and bootstrap. I don't know what other experience you have, but probably. At my previous job, I got a bunch of silicon production test engineers, that spend most of their day writing VBA, "productive" in React within a week. I setup the base of the application and sorted out the routing, state management and abstractions for dealing with our data. But they were writing views and features after a week pretty well. I had to point out some performance issues in code reviews but that was mainly it.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    > I don't know what other experience you have, but probably. At my previous job, I got a bunch of silicon production test engineers, that spend most of their day writing VBA, "productive" in React within a week. It depends on your definition of “production”. I got a couple of developers who had spent a decade+ supporting a PowerBuilder app and writing stored procedures. Their C# code was a horrible mess. My former CTO (55 years old and his idea of research was coding POCs - smart guy), said he wouldn’t hire “old people” any more to do front end work because their front end designs weren’t as good as people who started out doing front end work and have been doing it for years. All of his back end developers/architects were older.
- criddell 3y ago
  If your resume shows you job hop regularly, then I’m going to want you to be productive very quickly. If your resume gives me the impression that you are likely to still be working here for enough years, then I’ll give you time to get up to speed. If you were a really great front end developer in 2015, I suspect you can figure out Typescript/React.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I sucked back then too at front end development :). I knew enough to copy/paste/pattern match an existing page and make the necessary change. But you start me with a blank slate and give me a mock-up, I would end up using tables and frames like it’s 1999.
lawgimenez 3y ago
You could be productive in a not-so complicated Android codebase in a week.
pjmlp 3y ago
As someone that has done on and off Android programming as hobby since NDK was introduced in Android 2.2, and regularly follows ADB Podcast, I doubt it. Every Android version is basically a reboot in many parts of the framework, the device fragmentation is hardly any better than J2ME days, several features are only documented via samples or Google IO talks, Gradle plugins require rewrites between upgrades, and each Android Studio release is a box of surprises what quirks it has.
- doix 3y ago
  I think it really depends on what your definition of "productive" is. Let me try and quantify it. I looked through my apps that I installed from F-Droid, then looked at their GitHub issues and picked one [0]. I bet I could implement that in less than a week with 0 Android development experience. > Every Android version is basically a reboot in many parts of the framework, the device fragmentation is hardly any better than J2ME days, several features are only documented via samples or Google IO talks, Gradle plugins require rewrites between upgrades, and each Android Studio release is a box of surprises what quirks it has. Does any of that really matter if you're hiring someone into an existing org? Doesn't Android have amazing backwards compatibility? I'm sure I have some dice app from 2012 that still runs. The company is probably targeting some version of Android and isn't changing to the latest one every time a new version is released. [0] https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/2435 https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/2435
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Are you trying to find a job as a journeyman developer (nothing wrong with that) or are you trying to lead a team or be a senior where you are expected to be productive from day one and maybe mentor developers and be more strategic? Would you hire me someone who not only doesn’t know anything about Android development but doesn’t even follow the ecosystem and the current trends?
    - doix 3y ago
      If I was looking for a job, I'd say that I have no professional Android experience but I'm confident that I could hit the ground running at a senior level and mentor juniors for Android. I mean, in this hypothetical scenario, I've decided that I want a job as an Android developer. So I would take my own time to learn Android whilst interviewing. By the time I got a job, I'm confident I'd hit the ground running. I wouldn't try to apply for a job to lead an Android team without at least working in one first. I'm sure some people do, but I'm not that confident ;). > Would you hire me someone who not only doesn’t know anything about Android development but doesn’t even follow the ecosystem and the current trends? I wouldn't hire you because you don't sound like you think you could do it. If I was interviewing someone and they said something like: "I have no experience with Android, but I know Kotlin and I'm confident I could pick it up. I did a similar thing with x,y,z" then sure.

by doix 3y ago

scarface_74 3y ago

> It also depends on what you mean by "productive", would I want to lead a team to create a new app from scratch? Probably not. Go into an existing app and start fixing bugs and creating new features? Sure. As someone with experience, are you actually applying for jobs where you would just be pulling stories off the board doing “feature work”? And let’s take your example. What’s the chance of me being productively able to create a feature in a Typescript/React app seeing that I haven’t done front end work since 2015 and even then it was server side rendering with ASP.Net MVC and bootstrap.

doix 3y ago
> As someone with experience, are you actually applying for jobs where you would just be pulling stories off the board doing “feature work”? I dislike the whole Agile stories/points/sprints thing, so probably not those jobs. But if you're asking if I'm applying to jobs where I write code, then yep! I love writing code and building things. > And let’s take your example. What’s the chance of me being productively able to create a feature in a Typescript/React app seeing that I haven’t done front end work since 2015 and even then it was server side rendering with ASP.Net MVC and bootstrap. I don't know what other experience you have, but probably. At my previous job, I got a bunch of silicon production test engineers, that spend most of their day writing VBA, "productive" in React within a week. I setup the base of the application and sorted out the routing, state management and abstractions for dealing with our data. But they were writing views and features after a week pretty well. I had to point out some performance issues in code reviews but that was mainly it.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  > I don't know what other experience you have, but probably. At my previous job, I got a bunch of silicon production test engineers, that spend most of their day writing VBA, "productive" in React within a week. It depends on your definition of “production”. I got a couple of developers who had spent a decade+ supporting a PowerBuilder app and writing stored procedures. Their C# code was a horrible mess. My former CTO (55 years old and his idea of research was coding POCs - smart guy), said he wouldn’t hire “old people” any more to do front end work because their front end designs weren’t as good as people who started out doing front end work and have been doing it for years. All of his back end developers/architects were older.
criddell 3y ago
If your resume shows you job hop regularly, then I’m going to want you to be productive very quickly. If your resume gives me the impression that you are likely to still be working here for enough years, then I’ll give you time to get up to speed. If you were a really great front end developer in 2015, I suspect you can figure out Typescript/React.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I sucked back then too at front end development :). I knew enough to copy/paste/pattern match an existing page and make the necessary change. But you start me with a blank slate and give me a mock-up, I would end up using tables and frames like it’s 1999.

lawgimenez 3y ago

You could be productive in a not-so complicated Android codebase in a week.

pjmlp 3y ago

As someone that has done on and off Android programming as hobby since NDK was introduced in Android 2.2, and regularly follows ADB Podcast, I doubt it. Every Android version is basically a reboot in many parts of the framework, the device fragmentation is hardly any better than J2ME days, several features are only documented via samples or Google IO talks, Gradle plugins require rewrites between upgrades, and each Android Studio release is a box of surprises what quirks it has.

doix 3y ago
I think it really depends on what your definition of "productive" is. Let me try and quantify it. I looked through my apps that I installed from F-Droid, then looked at their GitHub issues and picked one [0]. I bet I could implement that in less than a week with 0 Android development experience. > Every Android version is basically a reboot in many parts of the framework, the device fragmentation is hardly any better than J2ME days, several features are only documented via samples or Google IO talks, Gradle plugins require rewrites between upgrades, and each Android Studio release is a box of surprises what quirks it has. Does any of that really matter if you're hiring someone into an existing org? Doesn't Android have amazing backwards compatibility? I'm sure I have some dice app from 2012 that still runs. The company is probably targeting some version of Android and isn't changing to the latest one every time a new version is released. [0] https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/2435 https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/2435
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Are you trying to find a job as a journeyman developer (nothing wrong with that) or are you trying to lead a team or be a senior where you are expected to be productive from day one and maybe mentor developers and be more strategic? Would you hire me someone who not only doesn’t know anything about Android development but doesn’t even follow the ecosystem and the current trends?
  - doix 3y ago
    If I was looking for a job, I'd say that I have no professional Android experience but I'm confident that I could hit the ground running at a senior level and mentor juniors for Android. I mean, in this hypothetical scenario, I've decided that I want a job as an Android developer. So I would take my own time to learn Android whilst interviewing. By the time I got a job, I'm confident I'd hit the ground running. I wouldn't try to apply for a job to lead an Android team without at least working in one first. I'm sure some people do, but I'm not that confident ;). > Would you hire me someone who not only doesn’t know anything about Android development but doesn’t even follow the ecosystem and the current trends? I wouldn't hire you because you don't sound like you think you could do it. If I was interviewing someone and they said something like: "I have no experience with Android, but I know Kotlin and I'm confident I could pick it up. I did a similar thing with x,y,z" then sure.