<< My new email signature | Home | NQA 1.2.3: Opps, My Bad >>

Thinking about developers

Part of my job is interviewing developers, and I get all sorts, some that sticks to mind:

  • ASP.Net programmer - 2 years experiance - couldn't explain how clicking on a button on the client cause the event to fire on the server. "It is ASP.Net that does it." - he kept saying.
  • An experiance programmer, that had a difficulity reversing a string.
  • ASP.Net programmer, nearly broke down and cried when I showed him HTML - "give me back the designer, I don't know what this stuff is"

I had a discussion today about the value of using a non-Microsoft framework for a complex application. The point that came up repeatedly was that they want to jsut grab a programmer from the street and have then start fixing bugs from day zero. For any but the most trivial applications, that is not going to happen. They are seeing the same types of people (appearing with 3 years experiance with MPL* and 15 years of .Net experiance).

The argument against going with the non-Microsoft route is that they need to train developers for that, and that this is too hard. My thoughts on this subject are well known. I refuse to program to the level of someone that is not willing to make the effort. That is far too limiting, and usually lead to the Throw Code At The Problem syndrom, after which the Big Rewrite Comes To The Rescue.

*MPL == My Proprietary Langauge

"The idea of programming as a semi-skilled task,. ideally practiced by people with a few months’ training, is dangerous."
~Bjarne Stroustrup

Update: After writing this, I run into these links:

Print | posted on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 7:13 PM

Feedback

Gravatar

#  1/17/2007 8:51 AM Web developers

Funny they call themselves asp.net programmers. Also do you or does your company need any work or projects to be done in C# or even php or Mysql ?

Chris
http://www.chrisranjana.com

Gravatar

#  1/17/2007 8:57 AM Tzvi

i can't agree with you more , i don't think that ppl that can configure the ASP.NET controls can say that they do know how to code , this days MS tries to speed up development by hiding some of the code under the hood - the resultis that more ppl can &quot;write&quot; code (code monkeys).
but it might also be a benefit , not all the developers should be at the same level ,some developers sould create the complex code , letting the other developers (those that just graduated MS academy) continue from there and just bind the GUI to the complex code.
moreever some of those GUI developers in time can adavnce and become hardcore developers but this can only be done if they are into technology
to summerize this long replay , there are several levels of developers , as long you and they know what their level is its ok .

Gravatar

#  1/17/2007 4:55 PM Pierre Henri

I think that the reason behind the &quot;just grab a programmer from the street and have then start fixing bugs from day zero&quot; syndrome is simply money.
&quot;Good&quot; programmers cost more money than &quot;average&quot; programmers (and they are harder to find, etc.). That's why companies with no understanding of software development will try to stick with stuff for &quot;average&quot; programmers (read RAD)...
And I think that the best balance differs for each company.

Gravatar

#  1/18/2007 2:51 AM Karthik

Funny, I actually was an &quot;off the street&quot; programmer on my first .NET project. See my latest blog posting to see my thoughts on this.

Gravatar

#  1/19/2007 10:22 AM Matt

High five! Absolutely right, and straight to the point. It's no surprise, considering how ridiculously bad most training books are (particularly with respect to technologies like ASP.NET and such-and-such-a SQL database). There are way too many &quot;Morts&quot; out there; a severe problem because the ignorant and unskilled are unaware of just how ignorant and unskilled they really are. Such &quot;Mort&quot; developers are not training themselves sufficiently (I read somewhere that the average developer buys, on average, about 2 development-related books a year). Companies are not training developers sufficiently - and by that I don't mean sending &quot;Mort&quot; on more asinine training courses for such-and-such-a proprietary product, but rather a structured process of peer review and theoretical fundamentals. Managers need to understand that programming a computer isn't done like it is on &quot;Star Trek&quot;.

If I'd have known all this before I started a career in I.T., I'd have become a feng shui consultant for idiot celebrities.

Gravatar

#  1/21/2007 10:22 PM Moran

Dear Oren,

The bottom line, Drag-and-Drop kind of programming works. You can’t blame companies for hiring cheap developers with poor skills that can produce a working outcome.

If the end results of such developers were poor exactly like they are, perhaps something would change in the world, but Microsoft made it pretty easy for these guys to keep their jobs… thus lowering costs of developing using their drag and drop products… hence… profits. Go figure.

Comments have been closed on this topic.