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This is the funniest thing I've seen on HN in a long time. So true -- a good programmer (carpenter) is a good programmer. Who cares what the latest language (wo

by dkoch 13y ago

This is the funniest thing I've seen on HN in a long time. So true -- a good programmer (carpenter) is a good programmer. Who cares what the latest language (wood) they've worked with?

munin 13y ago
what, really? I work either with kernel and system level code in C, or program analysis logics written in ocaml or c++. I've done that kind of programming for about ten years. so I should seriously be able to look someone who has done web development for an equal amount of time and say "yeah, I'm a decent programmer, surely I can get to the bottom of your domain in a few months of learning as I go". really? if you had a choice between hiring someone who was an expert in a totally orthogonal domain or someone with experience in the domain you were working in, you would prioritize experience over familiarity? how is that working out for you?
- nbouscal 13y ago
  The post was not really referring to a gap like that between systems programming and web development. It was referring to a gap like that between developing web applications in Ruby or Python. Drop a Django guy into a Rails project or vice versa and they will hit productivity parity within a very short span of time. The problem that the post laments is that while there absolutely are separate domains within the programming field, HR people rarely have any idea what those domains actually are. Because of this, they tend to operate under the assumption that every single entity (language, framework, etc) is a different domain, and if you haven't worked with the right entity then you don't have enough experience. Edit: To expand on this a bit further, your example of systems programming vs. web development is actually a perfect example of what the right question would be for the interviewer to ask. Has the carpenter built a lot of houses, or have they built a lot of tables and chairs? What wood they used to build them doesn't matter much, but what they built with it is very important and is where the real domain gaps actually lie. This distinction crosses over to programming very well.
saraid216 13y ago
Yeah, that's a terrible analogy. The appropriate analog for a programming language is a hammer or a screwdriver. The appropriate analog for wood is the processor.

by dkoch 13y ago

This is the funniest thing I've seen on HN in a long time. So true -- a good programmer (carpenter) is a good programmer. Who cares what the latest language (wood) they've worked with?

munin 13y ago

what, really? I work either with kernel and system level code in C, or program analysis logics written in ocaml or c++. I've done that kind of programming for about ten years. so I should seriously be able to look someone who has done web development for an equal amount of time and say "yeah, I'm a decent programmer, surely I can get to the bottom of your domain in a few months of learning as I go". really? if you had a choice between hiring someone who was an expert in a totally orthogonal domain or someone with experience in the domain you were working in, you would prioritize experience over familiarity? how is that working out for you?

nbouscal 13y ago
The post was not really referring to a gap like that between systems programming and web development. It was referring to a gap like that between developing web applications in Ruby or Python. Drop a Django guy into a Rails project or vice versa and they will hit productivity parity within a very short span of time. The problem that the post laments is that while there absolutely are separate domains within the programming field, HR people rarely have any idea what those domains actually are. Because of this, they tend to operate under the assumption that every single entity (language, framework, etc) is a different domain, and if you haven't worked with the right entity then you don't have enough experience. Edit: To expand on this a bit further, your example of systems programming vs. web development is actually a perfect example of what the right question would be for the interviewer to ask. Has the carpenter built a lot of houses, or have they built a lot of tables and chairs? What wood they used to build them doesn't matter much, but what they built with it is very important and is where the real domain gaps actually lie. This distinction crosses over to programming very well.

saraid216 13y ago

Yeah, that's a terrible analogy. The appropriate analog for a programming language is a hammer or a screwdriver. The appropriate analog for wood is the processor.