4 ms·

Asking about favourite computer books is also something I often do in interviews, whether I am the interviewer or interviewee. Partly to find out about if we sh

by flurdy 12y ago

Asking about favourite computer books is also something I often do in interviews, whether I am the interviewer or interviewee. Partly to find out about if we share a common perception of relevant books but also to find out about books I am not aware of or to get a new insight into. So I very much like this post and found several books to add to my reading list. :) I did once blog about whether teams/departments should have a required reading list http://blog.flurdy.com/2011/04/required-reading.html http://blog.flurdy.com/2011/04/required-reading.html . (Note that post was 4 years ago so the suggested list would have quite a few tweaks and was aimed at devs in my then niche)

EnderMB 12y ago
I've done this before, and nearly every time the person has said to me "Oh, I haven't read a programming book since university. I do all my reading online". It seems to be a common thing, which is a shame. I've always been fond of books, and unless you're pirating some classic texts and reading them as PDF's on your computer it feels like people miss out on a lot of quality content. How often do you come across this? Admittedly, when I've been directly involved in interviewing this has almost always been for people under 25 coming into a junior level role.
- flurdy 12y ago
  I know but different people learn and keep up to date in different ways (or not at all) so for me it is not a yes/no criteria on whether they get hired/approved by me. Just another piece of data to evaluate on. And similarly unfortunately the majority I encounter don't read many if any books. If people only read books then that is perhaps an issue as well. And reading a specific technical book about a specific software version is also usually a waste of time in my opinion. Read howtos online and experiment away instead. I do tend to interview more mid-to-senior level of which how they keep up to date is more relevant. I am not expecting new grads to have read the entire backlog of Pragmatic bookshelf if any. Nor am I expecting anyone to have read the bricks (gang of four, Fowler's application patterns etc) cover to cover. But for example seniors not having heard of these bricks or the Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer books is a red flag. If they know of them but disagree with them then that is fine, but not heard of them at all is weird. In a previous job they sent me Clean Code and a couple of other books in the post to read a few weeks before I started. Which was a good sign that I was joining the right company, even if I had already read them all previously :)

by flurdy 12y ago

EnderMB 12y ago

I've done this before, and nearly every time the person has said to me "Oh, I haven't read a programming book since university. I do all my reading online". It seems to be a common thing, which is a shame. I've always been fond of books, and unless you're pirating some classic texts and reading them as PDF's on your computer it feels like people miss out on a lot of quality content. How often do you come across this? Admittedly, when I've been directly involved in interviewing this has almost always been for people under 25 coming into a junior level role.

flurdy 12y ago
I know but different people learn and keep up to date in different ways (or not at all) so for me it is not a yes/no criteria on whether they get hired/approved by me. Just another piece of data to evaluate on. And similarly unfortunately the majority I encounter don't read many if any books. If people only read books then that is perhaps an issue as well. And reading a specific technical book about a specific software version is also usually a waste of time in my opinion. Read howtos online and experiment away instead. I do tend to interview more mid-to-senior level of which how they keep up to date is more relevant. I am not expecting new grads to have read the entire backlog of Pragmatic bookshelf if any. Nor am I expecting anyone to have read the bricks (gang of four, Fowler's application patterns etc) cover to cover. But for example seniors not having heard of these bricks or the Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer books is a red flag. If they know of them but disagree with them then that is fine, but not heard of them at all is weird. In a previous job they sent me Clean Code and a couple of other books in the post to read a few weeks before I started. Which was a good sign that I was joining the right company, even if I had already read them all previously :)