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Oh god. Most of this is hilarious. "A seasoned C developer with 10 years experience can not instantly morph into an advanced front end web application develope

by kalleth 12y ago

Oh god. Most of this is hilarious. "A seasoned C developer with 10 years experience can not instantly morph into an advanced front end web application developer" True, but they'll be a damn sight quicker at picking it up than anyone else. And they'll write far better code when they're there. If you're looking for a permanent employee, all development experience is relevant -- there is a huge amount of overlap and retraining just for a different language is no biggie. They'll also have solved (i'd bet) far harder problems than "HOW DO I GET THIS UI WIDGET TO UPDATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS". If you're looking for someone to hit the ground running from day 1, or work as a contractor, it's different. But you generalise too far here. "However, they have failed to mention anything else to back it up. I would expect to see some of the following throughout their CV; Design Patterns (MVC, Factories, Singletons, ActiveRecord), Classes, Objects, UML…" In my CV (highly rated by everyone i've given it to) you won't find a single one of these. Instead, you'll find real descriptions of what i've accomplished, who I worked with (mentoring etc), my methodology (agile, test driven development) and so on. And UML... holy shit, yeah, no. Community work? See Ashe Dryden's "The Ethics of Unpaid Labor and the OSS community", http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an..., and James Coglan's "Why GitHub is not your CV", https://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-cv/ https://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-c.... Hiring the right people has always been, and will continue to be, a hard job. The only way to do it is to use common sense and actually read the CV's you're being sent, then talk to the people you think could do the job to see if they can.

noamsml 12y ago
"How to rip apart an article about ripping apart a programmer's CV"
opendais 12y ago
Ya, I'm not sure if the OP was a troll HN post or what the goal was but the bit about keywords to me made me immediately shake my head. The only people who want keyword stuffed resumes are recruiters. Also, the poor capitalization/grammar in places. e.g. (which i will cover shortly) I'm amazed this was upvoted.
- SpunkyMoney 12y ago
  No troll. The typos etc are explained here: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/29yq47/how_to_rip_apart_a_programmers_cv/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/29yq47/how_to_r... Mainly to do with the fact I am from the UK and we spell things differently to people in the US.
  - opendais 12y ago
    In the UK, you still use I and not i. Fair enough but I'd suggest in the future you proofread more before self-submitting to HN.
    - SpunkyMoney 12y ago
      Correct, and we also spell things with an s where you use a z and others such as we spell "color" as "colour". The problem is, if I were to correct it for the UK, the US complain, if I correct it for the US, the UK complain. Since I am from the UK I will definitely make US related mistakes because I have not learnt your English.
oh_sigh 12y ago
Thank you. The entire article made me cringe for the exact reasons you specified. I would probably immediately junk a resume if I saw a list of design pattern names on it.
SpunkyMoney 12y ago
That's my blog post! So i'll try justify myself. "True, but they'll be a damn sight quicker at picking it up than anyone else. And they'll write far better code when they're there." Tried that with a few developers. Because it was such a change in thinking for them, the same standards didn't apply to javascript as it does for C, they would approach things the way C does instead of the way recommended by javascript etc. They were constantly fighting against their habits which they have had for 10 years. Soon as you add less, bootstrap, require, and so forth. Their learning curve starts becoming much higher and with the hindrance of their old habits. They end up worse and others have to refactor their code! This isn't opinion, it's happened a few times already at work. "In my CV (highly rated by everyone i've given it to) you won't find a single one of these. Instead, you'll find real descriptions of what i've accomplished, who I worked with (mentoring etc), my methodology (agile, test driven development) and so on." If you have a CV with the reputation like Jon Skeet, Rasmus Lerdorf or Douglas Crockford. Fair enough. But most people don't :) "And UML... holy shit, yeah, no." It's the best way to communicate how code design will be put together when talking to other devs. Instantly things like inheritance being used instead of aggregation, or composition being used when aggregation should be, or methods in the wrong classes. Even our IDE will produce UML which instantly lets devs see when they have placed something in the wrong place, set a method to public instead of private, and so forth. If you can read the basics of UML it helps tremendously. "The only way to do it is to use common sense and actually read the CV's you're being sent, then talk to the people you think could do the job to see if they can." Interviewing someone is expensive. I have my usual job to do as a programmer, interviewing takes me out of action for hours. I have to work out who has the higher chance of being worthwhile interviewing. Which is why I wrote that blog post. Explaining what things I personally, and i'm sure other employers will look for especially when comparing to another developers CV.
- clubhi 12y ago
  Your blog should have been called "If you hire average programmers, try to get ones with related experience". Or perhaps "Beware: average programmers have a hard time quickly learning new paradigms".
  - 12y ago
joesmo 12y ago
Still, a seasoned C developer of 10 years will not be as good as someone with 10 years in front end development experience. And vice-versa. That's the OP's point. You can substitute any technologies there and this will be true, all else being equal. It's not just about learning another language but also learning tools, libraries, systems, etc. and having the experience in a specific domain. What the OP describes is how just about every single company works. Is it ridiculous? Partly yes, partly not, but ridiculing it won't make it go away. The tech can be picked up, though even that takes time. There's no substitute for experience.

by kalleth 12y ago

noamsml 12y ago

"How to rip apart an article about ripping apart a programmer's CV"

opendais 12y ago

Ya, I'm not sure if the OP was a troll HN post or what the goal was but the bit about keywords to me made me immediately shake my head. The only people who want keyword stuffed resumes are recruiters. Also, the poor capitalization/grammar in places. e.g. (which i will cover shortly) I'm amazed this was upvoted.

SpunkyMoney 12y ago
No troll. The typos etc are explained here: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/29yq47/how_to_rip_apart_a_programmers_cv/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/29yq47/how_to_r... Mainly to do with the fact I am from the UK and we spell things differently to people in the US.
- opendais 12y ago
  In the UK, you still use I and not i. Fair enough but I'd suggest in the future you proofread more before self-submitting to HN.
  - SpunkyMoney 12y ago
    Correct, and we also spell things with an s where you use a z and others such as we spell "color" as "colour". The problem is, if I were to correct it for the UK, the US complain, if I correct it for the US, the UK complain. Since I am from the UK I will definitely make US related mistakes because I have not learnt your English.

oh_sigh 12y ago

Thank you. The entire article made me cringe for the exact reasons you specified. I would probably immediately junk a resume if I saw a list of design pattern names on it.

SpunkyMoney 12y ago

That's my blog post! So i'll try justify myself. "True, but they'll be a damn sight quicker at picking it up than anyone else. And they'll write far better code when they're there." Tried that with a few developers. Because it was such a change in thinking for them, the same standards didn't apply to javascript as it does for C, they would approach things the way C does instead of the way recommended by javascript etc. They were constantly fighting against their habits which they have had for 10 years. Soon as you add less, bootstrap, require, and so forth. Their learning curve starts becoming much higher and with the hindrance of their old habits. They end up worse and others have to refactor their code! This isn't opinion, it's happened a few times already at work. "In my CV (highly rated by everyone i've given it to) you won't find a single one of these. Instead, you'll find real descriptions of what i've accomplished, who I worked with (mentoring etc), my methodology (agile, test driven development) and so on." If you have a CV with the reputation like Jon Skeet, Rasmus Lerdorf or Douglas Crockford. Fair enough. But most people don't :) "And UML... holy shit, yeah, no." It's the best way to communicate how code design will be put together when talking to other devs. Instantly things like inheritance being used instead of aggregation, or composition being used when aggregation should be, or methods in the wrong classes. Even our IDE will produce UML which instantly lets devs see when they have placed something in the wrong place, set a method to public instead of private, and so forth. If you can read the basics of UML it helps tremendously. "The only way to do it is to use common sense and actually read the CV's you're being sent, then talk to the people you think could do the job to see if they can." Interviewing someone is expensive. I have my usual job to do as a programmer, interviewing takes me out of action for hours. I have to work out who has the higher chance of being worthwhile interviewing. Which is why I wrote that blog post. Explaining what things I personally, and i'm sure other employers will look for especially when comparing to another developers CV.

clubhi 12y ago
Your blog should have been called "If you hire average programmers, try to get ones with related experience". Or perhaps "Beware: average programmers have a hard time quickly learning new paradigms".
- 12y ago

joesmo 12y ago

Still, a seasoned C developer of 10 years will not be as good as someone with 10 years in front end development experience. And vice-versa. That's the OP's point. You can substitute any technologies there and this will be true, all else being equal. It's not just about learning another language but also learning tools, libraries, systems, etc. and having the experience in a specific domain. What the OP describes is how just about every single company works. Is it ridiculous? Partly yes, partly not, but ridiculing it won't make it go away. The tech can be picked up, though even that takes time. There's no substitute for experience.