Hiring a Programmer...

The Loony Bin ( loonies@bloodaxe.com )
Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:43:48 +0100


The Loony Bin - http://loonies.net800.co.uk/

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Hiya People...

There are a fair few programmers here, and one day some of you
may be hiring - here are some things to remember...

Wishes & Dreams...

- ANDREA
        xx

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***                 THE LOONY BIN                   ***
***              loonies@bloodaxe.com               ***
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**********************ANDROMEDA************************

  ------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------

How to Hire a Programmer
by Kevin D. Weeks

Forget about competency tests, previous work history,
personality profiles like the MBTI, reference-checking, and
follow-up interviews. After years of rigorous and admittedly
maverick research, I've identified five key characteristics you
can use to quickly assess the fitness of a programmer candidate.
I humbly submit that if you follow my advice and check for these
attributes, you'll shorten your hiring cycle and simultaneously
increase your success rate.

The best programmers prefer cats as pets. I've canvassed
hundreds of programmers on the subject of preferred pets, and
despite the odd ferret-lover (and believe me, ferret-lovers are
odd), time after time cats turn out to be the non-human
companion of choice. Think about it; it makes perfect sense
because programmers are human cats. Cats are night animals, as
are programmers. Cats are independent, like programmers. Cats
prefer to be left alone except when they want attention, and so
do programmers. Cats are notoriously elegant animals and ...
uhm, well ... programmers love elegant code. What's more,
software guru Meilir Page-Jones has likened managing programmers
to herding cats.

Turning to the next characteristic, programmers have a highly
developed sense of the absurd. And if you think about it, this
makes no sense at all. I don't know why so many programmers can
quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or know the entire
Naughty Hungarian Phrase Book skit, but they do. The next time
you interview a programmer candidate throw a "You're all
individuals" at him and see what he says.

Perhaps a sense of the absurd matters because so much of what
developers put up with is absurd - absurd schedules, absurd
requirements, absurd hours. Treating the absurdities of the
average development process with humor makes developers' jobs
much easier.

Developers are usually science-fiction fans. Great programmers
love technology, especially technology that doesn't yet exist.
You're in a business where the only constant is change, and you
need developers who don't mind a few arrows in their backs. Make
sure your candidate has read Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a
Harsh Mistress. And remember, every programmer worth her salt
knows what grok means. Many developers also are musicians,
painters, or photographers. Some will claim this is because
both programming and artistic endeavors require great
creativity. They're wrong.  It's because programming is more
like painting than engineering. Like painters, when programmers
make mistakes, they just code right over them.

Then there's the matter of puns. I've witnessed online pun-fests
that lasted as long as a week, with as many as 30 programmers
trying to outdo each other. I've noticed that some participants
are punctilious about staying with the root word, while others
approach them as pun-tests where misspelling words is permitted.
Again, the predilection makes perfect sense. Programming is
about using language to accomplish something, and programmers
have a highly evolved appreciation of how a language can be
manipulated to specific ends. Puns are ways of both displaying a
mastery of language and honing it.

So there you have it. Look for developers who love cats, quote
Monty Python, read Heinlein, play guitar, and are accomplished
punsters. If you find all these characteristics in a single
individual, hire that person immediately - confident you're
hiring a truly great developer.


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