Hiring Good Programmers Matters

Doctor O writes "Joel Spolsky (of joelonsoftware fame) has some good points and fun with numbers on the quality of programmers and whether it is more profitable to go with cheap or good programmers. His point is that a good programmer will simply create code of a quality that average programmers never can create. An interesting read."

Comments

I hope he's wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I hired a bunch of monkeys and I can't wait for them to write Shakespearian works!

Re:I hope he's wrong

[Tackhead]

> I hired a bunch of monkeys and I can't wait for them to write Shakespearian works!

Well, I couldn't hire monkeys, but I did the next best thing - outsourced the documentation department.

Romeo, Romeo, why is it that they are calling you Mister Romeo?
You should be talking to your father about getting your name changed,
And if you will not be doing that, oh please just be renewing my contract,
And I will be changing my name to Julie or something else that sounds kind of American!
(Shall I be listening to the on-hold music, or shall I just punch "0" and hope to be transferred?)

They didn't quite meet the "all documentation shall be written in iambic pentameter" part of the specification, but it wasn't bad for $6/hr... and it was still better English than what my alma mater's graduating these days. I'm convinced!

Can't Go Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

... sucking up to the egos of your readers.

Yes, you're all great programmers, much better than all the others out there. Especially because you read my posts. We need more people just like you.

Yes, but...

[TheOtherAgentM]

Can the good programmer create code that compiles with a message, "Error: Too many errors." like I did in college? Now THAT is hard to do.

He forgot something

[vectorian798]

Best working conditions --> Best Programmers --> Best Software --> Profit!

WTF happened to the ??? step!

Re:The answer depends

[certron]

Although, without bad programmers, we wouldn't have The Daily WTF.

Sometimes a person's purpose in life is to serve as an example to others. What kind of example is another matter entirely...

Re:The answer depends

[dusik]

Yeah, you'll notice that a team of cheap programmers writes it like:

printf("Hello world!\n");

// 3 cheap coders x $0.05 = $0.15

A single programming Guru will write it as:

/*
* Hello world!
* Copyright (c) 2005 John "Code Guru" Doe
*
* This programme tells the computer to say hello
* to the world, using correct Engligh grammar.
* It should look like:
*
*     Hello, world!
*
* NOTES
*
*  The programme is limited to one way in which
* it greets the world.  In version 2.0 we may
* include another variant of the phrase.  We
* will need an advanced AI engine for the task.
*
* BUGS
*
*  The punctuation is not entirely correct.
* The programme skips the comma between
* "Hello" and "world".
*
* TODO
*
*  Needs more testing.
*/

// Greet the world.  To do that, we make the
// computer say "Hello, world!".
printf("Hello world!\n");

// 1 guru coder x $80/hr x 8 hours = $640.00

Re:The answer depends

[Marc Rochkind]

Well, many people would call me a "guru programmer," and there's no way I would do this for anything like $80 x 8 hours.

You need error-checking on printf and an error log for the error message, you need to internationalize and localize the string, you need both user and maintenance documentation, and you need a client-server architecture. Not to mention that you seem to have jumped into the project without written requirements, a specification, and usability testing.

This would take about a month at my standard rate of $200/hr.

Re:my own experiences

[TapeCutter]

Employed.

Other news

[Frankie70]

In other news,
1) Good Carpenters build good furniture
2) Good Architects architect good structures
3) Good Authors write good books