5 ms·

The last time I interviewed a candidate for a web development position, he could only list the projects he completed for his master's degree (one might have bee

by smoyer 14y ago

The last time I interviewed a candidate for a web development position, he could only list the projects he completed for his master's degree (one might have been for his BSCS). I'm almost 50 and know far more about current technologies than he did, plus I have a family (to spend time with) and several of my own side projects (not to mention a start-up). If you're not passionate enough about programming to have a side project (or six), please just get out of the profession. Or maybe become a mediocre manager (if you think you're done learning when you leave school behind, you'll have no choice). I agree that high-technology businesses were the only organizations that maintained (or even grew) employment during the recession but ... that doesn't mean you deserve one of those jobs. If you love it enough to make it your hobby, you can earn a good living at software development without being a flash-in-the-pan.

rdouble 14y ago
This is a common refrain, but the best programmers I've worked with do not have any evidence that they work on side projects.
- jaegerpicker 14y ago
  That is exactly the opposite of my experience in every case I can think of all of the very best that I've worked with had many side projects. In fact some of the most exciting Main Projects have started as side projects of the Great programmers I've worked with.
- chimi 14y ago
  And you have provided no evidence that the best programmers you've worked with aren't actually below average programmers.
  - wam 14y ago
    Why does that matter?
    - rhizome 14y ago
      Because the inverse would also have to be true: programmers with open source projects are worse than the programmers rdouble is describing.
      - wam 14y ago
        Is that the inverse? Would all programmers with side projects necessarily be worse than the programmers rdouble knows who don't have side projects?
snogglethorpe 14y ago
While I think programmers for whom programming is a "passion" (and often have lots of side projects and involvement in programming generally outside their work) can be among the best, I've also met tons of excellent programmers who approached it mostly as a profession and weren't really involved much outside of that. I've also met some really awful programmers who were "passionate" about it as a hobby. Passion outside of work is neither necessary nor sufficient. [I, personally, am of the "passion" sort. I find that this attribute can be both an (obvious) help but oddly, also sometimes a hindrance, as I can get too personally involved in things, and sometimes that clouds my judgment.]
- slurgfest 14y ago
  What made the passionate programmers awful?
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    No one particular thing... the only point is that passion isn't enough to make you a good programmer (or good anything I suppose).
  - damoncali 14y ago
    Lack of focus and addiction to mastery the new and shiny can really hamper a passionate programmer's ability to produce.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    Because for many people, they are confused between their least area of incompetence and passion. This happens with 99.99% of the people, truly passionate people are exceedingly rare.
- jmspring 14y ago
  Passion doesn't need to be about programming. Passion and curiosity can be targeted at other areas. The one type of candidate that I will almost always turn down when interviewing is the one that can't answer the simple question of "Tell me a story about something you enjoy and why. It could be a project you worked on, an outside hobby, anything." We all have our different strengths and interests, but the people I've found that I work with the best can talk about something they enjoy. As for myself, I've spent many years working in the industry. Sometimes I take on side projects just to noodle around, sometimes I take on consulting projects to learn something new (or help out a friend). Given my drothers, I lean towards non-programming pursuits these days -- cooking, gardening, mountain biking. In their own way, all stimulating and, at the same time, allow my mind to relax away from the computer.
twmb 14y ago
No, please. I have many issues with this, coming from the applicant's perspective. He could have taken his masters program as his full time hobby. There is a reason he went to masters. He loved what he was studying. It only makes sense for all projects for him to work on are ones that are for the masters program. caveat: I believe this holds more-so for Ph.D. people than masters, as masters is still half class based. However, masters students have research projects that take up the other half of their time. Or, he could have had consistently heavy course loads. The reason that many famous entrepreneurs drop out is because they do not have enough time to do both school and their amazing side project (note, their one amazing side project). This is rare. Have you considered that >90% of CS graduates are not going to be superstar programmers? At my University, I do not know of any other students doing their own side projects, outside of research projects with professors (this isn't to say I'm the only one, but given what I know, I'd be willing to bet there are fewer than 5 doing something cool). One of my master theories is that I do need an online presence codewise and blogwise to demonstrate my competence and my passion for building cool stuff. However, to start building projects on GitHub or fixing bugs, you need a pretty descent level of competence. Universities such as mine first immerse you in Java, teach some theoretical CS (algorithms, ...), then have a class on various programming languages then have the upper division courses on C or C++. If you notice, most super cool open source projects these days revolve around C++ at a level that we don't learn, JavaScript, a language that is booming on popularity now but is only touched on in Universities, and Python, which is used in some Universities (those fortunate people) instead of Java. I doubt JavaScript will be seriously taught in Universities for many years. Maybe the Ivy's will have it down, but not everybody goes there. From this we can draw the conclusion that most students wont have the competence to commit to open source projects unless they go off and seriously learn on their own time. Students like that may only build simple projects for themselves and not put it up for show (it's so simple, surely somebody has better functionality somewhere, right?). Why blog? Students like that have nothing profound to talk about. One of my issues with the frequenters of hacker news is that every programmer expects everybody else to be at least as competent as they are. Not everybody has as high of a drive to code nonstop. I don't. After classes, after oodles of homework and self-teaching the 90% they didn't teach me in class, I want to read books. I enjoy reading. I enjoy hanging out with my friends. I, unlike most of my fellow students, have realized that dream jobs have ridiculous expectations. I can see why, too: if everybody wants the job, and they are doing something legitimately cool, then it's only reasonable they should have the pick of the litter. However, is your job a dream job? I hate seeing every single application say "two years of experience required" or five. I've been fortunate enough to get internships for the past two summers. Is every graduate expected to take some bullshit big biz job for 2 years, learning very little and becoming embittered by the industry? This is worthless. Some enjoy it, I don't. It'd be better for small companies to take on a promising looking graduate at a slightly less pay and have them expand their knowledge at the company. Yes, I deserve your job. I'm more than competent enough for it. If I don't have the knowledge you need now, I would be able to learn it in depth within two weeks (give me the full days to learn it). I love what I'm doing, but I love other things too. Having other hobbies besides coding is healthy. Just because you know all the current buzzwords (node, django, backbone, Go, ?) does not mean you are a better coder and does not mean another person without this knowledge is worthless.

by smoyer 14y ago

rdouble 14y ago

This is a common refrain, but the best programmers I've worked with do not have any evidence that they work on side projects.

jaegerpicker 14y ago
That is exactly the opposite of my experience in every case I can think of all of the very best that I've worked with had many side projects. In fact some of the most exciting Main Projects have started as side projects of the Great programmers I've worked with.
chimi 14y ago
And you have provided no evidence that the best programmers you've worked with aren't actually below average programmers.
- wam 14y ago
  Why does that matter?
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Because the inverse would also have to be true: programmers with open source projects are worse than the programmers rdouble is describing.
    - wam 14y ago
      Is that the inverse? Would all programmers with side projects necessarily be worse than the programmers rdouble knows who don't have side projects?

snogglethorpe 14y ago

While I think programmers for whom programming is a "passion" (and often have lots of side projects and involvement in programming generally outside their work) can be among the best, I've also met tons of excellent programmers who approached it mostly as a profession and weren't really involved much outside of that. I've also met some really awful programmers who were "passionate" about it as a hobby. Passion outside of work is neither necessary nor sufficient. [I, personally, am of the "passion" sort. I find that this attribute can be both an (obvious) help but oddly, also sometimes a hindrance, as I can get too personally involved in things, and sometimes that clouds my judgment.]

slurgfest 14y ago
What made the passionate programmers awful?
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  No one particular thing... the only point is that passion isn't enough to make you a good programmer (or good anything I suppose).
- damoncali 14y ago
  Lack of focus and addiction to mastery the new and shiny can really hamper a passionate programmer's ability to produce.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Because for many people, they are confused between their least area of incompetence and passion. This happens with 99.99% of the people, truly passionate people are exceedingly rare.
jmspring 14y ago
Passion doesn't need to be about programming. Passion and curiosity can be targeted at other areas. The one type of candidate that I will almost always turn down when interviewing is the one that can't answer the simple question of "Tell me a story about something you enjoy and why. It could be a project you worked on, an outside hobby, anything." We all have our different strengths and interests, but the people I've found that I work with the best can talk about something they enjoy. As for myself, I've spent many years working in the industry. Sometimes I take on side projects just to noodle around, sometimes I take on consulting projects to learn something new (or help out a friend). Given my drothers, I lean towards non-programming pursuits these days -- cooking, gardening, mountain biking. In their own way, all stimulating and, at the same time, allow my mind to relax away from the computer.

twmb 14y ago

No, please. I have many issues with this, coming from the applicant's perspective. He could have taken his masters program as his full time hobby. There is a reason he went to masters. He loved what he was studying. It only makes sense for all projects for him to work on are ones that are for the masters program. caveat: I believe this holds more-so for Ph.D. people than masters, as masters is still half class based. However, masters students have research projects that take up the other half of their time. Or, he could have had consistently heavy course loads. The reason that many famous entrepreneurs drop out is because they do not have enough time to do both school and their amazing side project (note, their one amazing side project). This is rare. Have you considered that >90% of CS graduates are not going to be superstar programmers? At my University, I do not know of any other students doing their own side projects, outside of research projects with professors (this isn't to say I'm the only one, but given what I know, I'd be willing to bet there are fewer than 5 doing something cool). One of my master theories is that I do need an online presence codewise and blogwise to demonstrate my competence and my passion for building cool stuff. However, to start building projects on GitHub or fixing bugs, you need a pretty descent level of competence. Universities such as mine first immerse you in Java, teach some theoretical CS (algorithms, ...), then have a class on various programming languages then have the upper division courses on C or C++. If you notice, most super cool open source projects these days revolve around C++ at a level that we don't learn, JavaScript, a language that is booming on popularity now but is only touched on in Universities, and Python, which is used in some Universities (those fortunate people) instead of Java. I doubt JavaScript will be seriously taught in Universities for many years. Maybe the Ivy's will have it down, but not everybody goes there. From this we can draw the conclusion that most students wont have the competence to commit to open source projects unless they go off and seriously learn on their own time. Students like that may only build simple projects for themselves and not put it up for show (it's so simple, surely somebody has better functionality somewhere, right?). Why blog? Students like that have nothing profound to talk about. One of my issues with the frequenters of hacker news is that every programmer expects everybody else to be at least as competent as they are. Not everybody has as high of a drive to code nonstop. I don't. After classes, after oodles of homework and self-teaching the 90% they didn't teach me in class, I want to read books. I enjoy reading. I enjoy hanging out with my friends. I, unlike most of my fellow students, have realized that dream jobs have ridiculous expectations. I can see why, too: if everybody wants the job, and they are doing something legitimately cool, then it's only reasonable they should have the pick of the litter. However, is your job a dream job? I hate seeing every single application say "two years of experience required" or five. I've been fortunate enough to get internships for the past two summers. Is every graduate expected to take some bullshit big biz job for 2 years, learning very little and becoming embittered by the industry? This is worthless. Some enjoy it, I don't. It'd be better for small companies to take on a promising looking graduate at a slightly less pay and have them expand their knowledge at the company. Yes, I deserve your job. I'm more than competent enough for it. If I don't have the knowledge you need now, I would be able to learn it in depth within two weeks (give me the full days to learn it). I love what I'm doing, but I love other things too. Having other hobbies besides coding is healthy. Just because you know all the current buzzwords (node, django, backbone, Go, ?) does not mean you are a better coder and does not mean another person without this knowledge is worthless.