How To Find Bad Programmers

AmberShah writes "The job post is your potential programmer's first impression of your company, so make it count with these offputting features. There are plenty of articles about recruiting great developers, but what if you are only interested in the crappy ones?" I think much of the industry is already following these guidelines.

Comments

looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[e065c8515d206cb0e190]

anyone?

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[TheSpoom]

Well, you'll certainly get bad programmers if you choose the ones with 'C+' on their resume.

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[cybergrue]

There was actually a language called C+. No one has used it since the mid 80s though.
It was an early attempt at extending C. C plus more I think was what they were calling it.
I may be showing my age here, but I remember reading about it in Byte Magazine (OK I am defiantly showing my age) .

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Try asking for C, C#, C$, C%, C^ and C(.

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you'll certainly get bad programmers if you choose the ones with 'C+' on their resume.

When I was in high school we had a programming class wherein the teacher taught this strange mashup of C and C++ (technically it was c++, but much if it worked more like C). I liked to call it C+. Definnitely haven't advertised that on my resume though :p

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[StuartHankins]

Bonus points if you write it as a regex expression.

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[TheThiefMaster]

You mean this? ABCL/C+

Re:looking for C/C+/C++ programmers

[Murdoch5]

Or C++ or Java etc.... OO programming languages are the biggest problem facing computer science. C is still the best language for any actual task to be preformed and if you need a better extension to C you drop down to ASM and interface them.

Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to India?

Re:Crappy programmers

[infinite9]

You got modded down for this, but it's true. You get what you pay for. Just low-ball the salary or billing rate. The people who are worth anything will be kept by the employers who know better. And you'll just end up bottom-feeding. There's a reason Indian programmers are cheap. I've worked with many. Some were awesome programmers. But by far, most were just cheap. And this is true regardless of whether they're Indian or not. Cheap people are cheap for a reason.

Re:Crappy programmers

[rubycodez]

nope, the people who are worth anything are thrown out the door first prior to or right after merger/acquisition, the cheap rate tards are left behind.

Re:Crappy programmers

[lgw]

I've never had a problem with Indian programmers. I've often had problems with programmers working in India. Partly it's the time zone difference that makes every little thing a pain in the ass, but there is also a tendency for companies to bring the best to America. While this is finally starting to change, it's still quite rare for a senior guy still working from India to be better than average.

So, yeah, the market does tend to sort out the whole price v quality thing in the long haul, but race doesn't really enter into it.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Grishnakh]

And the REALLY good people aren't available, because they've gotten sick of the crap and found a new career doing something entirely different.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Maxo-Texas]

I've had a consistent problem with indian programmers.

Regardless of quality level, they say "yes" to the most insane requirements by executives.

We had a project which three groups had internally estimated at 2400 to 4000 hours (and a couple million in new hardware).

The VP said, "it's a 600 hour project without needing new hardware!"

They said yes.

They did about $600,000 work on it- and now everyone (including the executive) is quietly ignoring it. It will never see production. It's "complete".

The indians *never* stop the executives when this comes up.

And the executives are happy because
a) they were not told no.
b) the people who worked on the project are anonymous or gone/transferred elsewhere.

Meanwhile the company just dropped 2-3% of the annual budget down a hole.

Re:Crappy programmers

[plopez]

I can't say I'm really good*, but I am transitioning out.

*Probably mediocre and not dangerous. Probably worth my salary most days.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Grishnakh]

Out of curiosity, where are you transitioning to?

Re:Crappy programmers

[tdp252]

I don't care if an Indian developer is a genius and the reincarnation of Einstein. If the person can't speak fluent enough English to exercise basic communication skills then you are worthless to me in a business setting ! This isn't limited specifically to Indians but the growing trend of companies to hire extremely intelligent people from foreign counties for pennies that cannot speak but a few words of broken English infuriates me. They may have done well on some written acceptance test but then they throw these poor people into group situations where communication is key to getting any work accomplished and it freezes the entire process.

My job is to gather application requirements and pair new projects up to an appropriate data storage solution. Getting any sort of requirements out of some of these people is frustrating beyond all belief and driving a lot of very good people out of technology. I know it cannot be much better for the poor developers being taught to swim by being thrown into the deep end.

Re:Crappy programmers

[tazanator]

I bailed to truck driving - always an office with a view, no (l)users calling the que. and VERY LITTLE management interaction (hard to do from 500 miles or more)

Re:Crappy programmers

[houghi]

I have had problems with Indian programmers. But then it was not their fault that they did not understand the fact that in Belgium things need to be done in two languages.
We have this great CRM system for you that you can use for Marketing.
* Where does it indicate the language like we asked?
You can send it in any language.
* We can only send it in Dutch or French
Yes. Isn't that great?
* We need to be able to send it in Dutch AND French
Yes, that is possible as well. You can send it twice
* We can not send French messages to Dutch customers.
Well, uh, we will implement that. (More then a year later: Sorry, no budget anymore.)

So a waste of a LOT of money. Could have done it much cheaper myself AND would have had something that would have worked.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said. And there is more to that.

The most common cause of below-average Indian programmer is that most of them are in the software engineering mainly because of job opportunities, and not because they love programing. I know this first hand because I _am_ an Indian programmer who was a chemical eng by education but switched to software straight out of undergrad. [But in my case, I love programming so much that I have refused to move into 'management' (read MS Office) and have instead opted to leave my former company and join a small firm as a developer/architect so that I continue to do what I really love.]

Also, in general, a good programmer would also have better communication skills and better understanding of business. This makes them perfect candidates to be sent onsite by the Indian firms and most of them end up staying back. This pretty much leaves below par programmers who do not like programing and are waiting for the next review cycle and promotion.

In the end, it boils down to personal interest in programming - unfortunately, very few from my country take it as an art.

And BTW, I have also seen equally bad programmer in the US who are not from India, but in general, they happen to be less in terms of percentage than their Indian counterparts.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed there seems to be a mystique involved with Indian programmers where everyone seems to think they are math geniuses with autistic-like memory and brains like a sponge who run on 1 hour of sleep a night. The reality is that 1 in 10 Indian programmers I've seen are terrible and cannot program their way out of a paper bag. Now, clearly that is a personal observation and I'm sure there are plenty of good Indian programmers out there. However, it has become apparent to me (being in a graduate computer science program) that there are many Indian programmers who show up in colleges in the states with dazzling resumes and pages and pages of skills. When asked to demonstrate these, they have a very basic knowledge or none at all. I was partnered with a female Indian programmer for one of my classes who had a three page resume listing her positions as a "programmer", "software developer", etc in "C++", "Java", "C#", etc. A very basic assignment showed she had NO skill or experience whatsoever in Java or C++, and that she was incapable of even defining a class in either language. The other aspect I've noticed is that Indian CS students tend to stick together and cheat like there is no tomorrow. They pass copies of old tests to each other, copy each other's homeworks and cheat on exams. I was told once by an Indian student that they believed this to be ok because they have to do whatever it takes to get ahead (apparently that doesn't include actually studying the material). So they end up with 4.0 GPAs and no skill set, while students who actually do their best to take risks, try out new material and study on their own are indirectly penalized.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have many Indian friends and many who are very good. But for every great Indian programmer who gets hired at a company, there are 10 who are also hired who are TERRIBLE and get in based on their "qualifications" and GPA.

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying anyone who *chooses* to be in India is by default a crappy programmer?

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto my experience. I believe it's a cultural thing, to not want to say no, and to want to be seen as agreeable. You have to deal with the group differently.

(anon for obv reasons)

Re:Crappy programmers

[Reservoir Penguin]

It's called a can-do attitude. I believe it is something that Americans used to have and now you complain when Indian and Russian developers show it. When given tough requirements Americans start looking for a way why it can not be done while we take on the "impossible" and accomplish it, often ahead of schedule!

Re:Crappy programmers

[fleebert]

This is true, and it's a problem which needs addressing. Keep in mind that they didn't say "yes" because they're ignorant, stupid, or bad coders. They may in fact be some or all of those things (which is a different issue), but those things are most likely not why they said "yes"; they did it because they're Indian.

Note that I say this not as an Indian but as an expat who's been in India for a bit more than a year now. There are ridiculously complex reasons why this behavior exists (it's a multi-thousand year-old culture with a billion people; nothing's simple), but the treatment of the summary of the precis of the cliff's notes (which is pretty much all a single year here will give you) is that the junior folks, especially those who have not worked for US companies before, make the assumption that if they're being asked to do something then it must be doable because the people in power asked them to do it. Or at the very least, they're not going to call out the people in power of for thinking that it's possible.

My advice? If you're working for a company which is running into this problem, make a very concerted effort to convince management to invest in Indian cultural training for your staff (both domestic and Indian) and ensure that management takes these classes as well. The cultural disconnect which exists between India and western countries in general (and the U.S. in particular) is huge, and throwing folks into a stewpot together and thinking things will just work is foolish.

Having been to India twice (once on short-term assignment with no cultural prep and now again on a long-term assignment with several days of cultural prep), I can tell you the training makes a world of difference.

Re:Crappy programmers

[nikanth]

Go to India?

I find this racist. Please avoid these kind of derogatory comments.

Thanks
Nikanth Karthikesan
An Indian

Re:Crappy programmers

[Maxo-Texas]

I think you missed the part where we dropped over half a million dollars and the result wasn't usable.

That's not "can do".

Re:Crappy programmers

[pugugly]

My Mom drove a truck for about ten years (Various Companies)

You've been misinformed. They track you via GPS, prices everywhere *you* can stop are marked up, Dispatchers give you illegally short times to go distances, believe truckers are a dime a dozen, and happily lie to Highway inspectors when you're caught, and all this in exchange for a job where you get the joy of having your entire truck stolen at gun point.

Ah, the joy of crushing hopes and dreams - {G}..

Pug

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

yes its fact ...
this recession shown it all well

Re:Crappy programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap people are often cheap because they're fresh out of school and lack paid experience. Unpaid internships take full advantage of this, and if you can't support yourself during this "right of passage," you'll have a difficult time advancing.

Start a MU*

[Wyatt Earp]

You want bad programmers? Start a MUD/MUX/MUSH and advertise for coders, you'll get the damned scum of the earth, a Mos Eisley cantina of crap coders

Re:Start a MU*

[lgw]

One of the programmers on the Chrome team used to be a coder for a small-time MMORPG, so there's some evidence that it's possible that the occasional Jedi will wander in. But, yeah, that would have to be one heck of a filtering process.

Re:Start a MU*

[Wyatt Earp]

There was/is alot of crazy in the MU* coder ranks.

Re:Start a MU*

[egcagrac0]

Is.

Re:Start a MU*

[julesh]

One of the programmers on the Chrome team used to be a coder for a small-time MMORPG

There's a hell of a difference between an MMORPG and a MUD. Speaking personally, I'm pretty sure I could knock up the framework required to run a typical MUD in a weekend or three. I specced one out back in '95 or '96 when I was learning Java, but never got around to writing it because the content designer dropped out of the project, but it wouldn't have taken long to implement. An MMORPG? Give me a couple of years and I might have something passable. Sure, in many respects the back end is quite similar (although it needs to cope with a much higher transaction volume because you need to track player positions within each location rather than simply which players are present), but the difference in the front ends is very nearly the difference between writing 'hello world' and a real time operating system.

Re:Start a MU*

[fishexe]

You want bad programmers? Start a MUD/MUX/MUSH and advertise for coders, you'll get the damned scum of the earth, a Mos Eisley cantina of crap coders

Funny you should word it like that, the last MUX and the last MUSH I played on both took place largely in Mos Eisley...

Re:Start a MU*

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ones were they?

Re:Start a MU*

[lgw]

Not all MMORPGs are first person, or all that fancy programatically - have you ever played a Korean MMO? Also, most of the good MUDs are real-time. Sure, you need a lot of art assets to make an MMORPG, but that's not coding, and some of the big MMORPGs have licensed existing client-side engines, not written them themselves.

If I were to write an MMORPG, I'd start with the open-source game engine, and focus on content and the actual game mechanics.

Step 1

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Step 1: Create an Ask Slashdot looking for (ironically) *good* programmers
Step 2: Identify all self-identified good programmers

Done!

Re:Step 1

[ClosedSource]

There's definitely some truth in that. It seems like 80% of Slashdotters think that 80% of programmers suck but they're not part of that 80%.

Re:Step 1

[elnyka]

There's definitely some truth in that. It seems like 80% of Slashdotters think that 80% of programmers suck but they're not part of that 80%.

It is called the Slashdot Paradox.

Re:Step 1

[lgw]

Which just shows that Slashdotters are better at self-reflection than most. 90% of people think they're in the top 10% of drivers.

Re:Step 1

[BlueBoxSW.com]

That could work, I guess, if only 20% or so if coders read slashdot.

More likely, I think you are saying, is that some of those who think their code-don't-stink are fooling themselves.

Re:Step 1

[forsey]

Most crappy programmers I know don't read Slashdot, nor do they read anything else that could be considered "industry material". Hard to stay crappy if you keep learning.

Re:Step 1

[natehoy]

Welcome to Slashdot, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the programmers are above average."

Re:Step 1

[Shagg]

It seems like 80% of Slashdotters think that 80% of programmers suck but they're not part of that 80%.

Uhm... that's most likely a true statement. You do realize that not all programmers read Slashdot, and not all slashdot readers are programmers?

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

If slashdot is where you do your learning then I pity you.

Re:Step 1

[feepness]

Most crappy programmers I know don't read Slashdot, nor do they read anything else that could be considered "industry material". Hard to stay crappy if you keep learning.

How else can I keep up on the latest buzzwords to mention in my interview as I shuttle from job to job?

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm entirely self taught hobbyist programmer, I learnt a lot from reading slashdot over the years and when i first started to code I was
always stuck trying to find the perfect piece of code to fix all my problems, because a lot of commenters rile on about how bad
shit code is. Many many rules of thumb and code practices can be picked up here. The most recent one that's causing me an
amusing amount of strife is that 'there's no such thing as temporary code'. I should of paid attention to that one! Now I have to rewrite
a significant amount of my project, because I was too lazy to do something the right way the first time around lol.

Please excuse grammar, i've had a few ;/. But yeah slashdot's a decent place to pick up generalized programming practices and
to learn how important critical thinking is.

Re:Step 1

[adisakp]

I remember one slashdot post where the guy claimed he had written a million lines of code without a single bug. However, he had about twenty spelling errors in his post. When I pointed that out though, I was down-modded for being a grammar troll but I think it was relevant to point out the ridiculousness of someone who claims to write a million lines of perfect code who couldn't even get through a sentence without spelling and grammar errors.

Re:Step 1

[e2d2]

I'm terrible. Next year I'll be horrific. The year after that I will be like a black hole of awesome-bad.

Seriously. Each year I work the more I realize how much I don't know. I'm not a great programmer, but I can always learn from them and be paranoid about my own abilities. When you realize you're not as smart as you think you start to work differently, in a good way (IMHO). I thought I was hot shit when I started. What a joke.

Re:Step 1

[plopez]

Same here. The other thing I do these days when coding is think: "I can be really clever here. Should I?"

I think self monitoring is a very important meta-task. That said, like you I think I am at best mediocre and no longer dangerous.

Re:Step 1

[plopez]

QA obviously inserted any errors just to embarrass him.

Re:Step 1

[TheLink]

Maybe the project's only requirements were that he write a million lines of code.

After all, correct behaviour is often defined by the requirements. If the requirements change, new bugs could appear.

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Most crappy programmers I know consider Slashdot "industry material".

Re:Step 1

[ClosedSource]

Yes, I knew somebody would point that out, but I chose humor over logic in this case.

Re:Step 1

[ClosedSource]

"More likely, I think you are saying, is that some of those who think their code-don't-stink are fooling themselves."

Actually, I think that "suckiness" of programmers in general is vastly overstated. It seems popular today to promote oneself by pointing out how bad everybody else is.

Kind of like calling a lot of girls "ugly" as if it will make people believe you're hot shit with the ladies.

Re:Step 1

[hrimhari]

That because code is always written in English and not C or Java, right?

Re:Step 1

[anarche]

if (coder.lang.reflect.Slashdot.getClass(this) == "me") {
        return "i rule"
} else {
        return "i suck"
}

Don't hire me.

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard to stay crappy if you keep learning.

****

A challenger appears!

Re:Step 1

[Curl E]

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

-- Brian W. Kernighan

Re:Step 1

[mgblst]

That is a logically consistent sentence, unless you think that >30% of programmers that exist in the world are here on slashdot commenting about how great they are. I think the pool of programmers is a bit larger than that.

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading Slashdot will not make you a better programmer.

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

someone who claims to write a million lines of perfect code who couldn't even get through a sentence without spelling and grammar errors

That depends which programming language he was using.

Re:Step 1

[fishexe]

Most crappy programmers I know don't read Slashdot, nor do they read anything else that could be considered "industry material". Hard to stay crappy if you keep learning.

Ah, mistake number 1, my friend. You assume that reading Slashdot leads to learning....

Re:Step 1

[fishexe]

...the ridiculousness of someone who claims to write a million lines of perfect code who couldn't even get through a sentence without spelling and grammar errors.

Maybe English grammar is harder than program grammar?

Re:Step 1

[Sir_Lewk]

Good programmers should always be able to speak/write both fluently.

Re:Step 1

[pugugly]

To be fair I think I'm in the top 10% of drivers, and that thought terrifies me.

{G} - Pug

Re:Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

It is my experience (+30 yrs.) that programmers that run around quoting Kernighan, Knuth, Dijkstra, etc., ARE the bad ones who think they are the good ones. You know, it's OK to have your own opinion on what is good programming, and it's OK to think these man (though great) weren't always right. As an example, see Knuth's rebuttal of Dijkstra's "goto" letter to the ACM (IMHO, Knuth right; Dijkstra wrong).

I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[gestalt_n_pepper]

On the net at least. Usually on rentacoder or such. I've tried to work with some of these guys and Oy! There are exceptions, thank goodness, but the majority of them are um, questionable at best.

You get what you pay for. You want a good coder? Look at their code. Make them take some written tests and an oral exam. Have them write you something small for free. Make sure they have a decent overall education (important!) and can communicate. Where I work, our coders tend to be excellent, but we put them through the wringer to work here.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[oldspewey]

You want a good coder? ... Have them write you something small for free.

Most of the good coders I know would walk right on out the door if the first thing you asked them to do was write something for free.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Draek]

You get what you pay for. You want a good coder? Look at their code. Make them take some written tests and an oral exam. Have them write you something small for free.

Hell yeah. That's why, when deciding whether a job is worth taking, I always ask the prospective employers to give me a month of salary without working for it.

There does seem to be an awful lot of shitty jobs out there, though.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Have them write you something small for free.

I have seen exactly one instance of this happening. I walked right out. Four months later the company as charged with unethical buisness practices. They even got sued by a Church of all things.

Asking to look at existing samples (a portfolio) or testing is one thing. Asking for free work is bound to get only inferior employees, lawsuits and criminal charges.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Asking for free work is bound to get only inferior employees, lawsuits and criminal charges.

Free useful work, sure. But write a short class? Esp during the interview process?

Of course, make sure it's totally outside the realm of being used.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[s73v3r]

There's a difference between example or interview code ("Write a function to reverse a string"), and asking them to do part of the work, up front, for free. Anyone worth their salt will correctly balk when asked to do the latter.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[X0563511]

So make sure it's pointless, and they know it's pointless. It's an exercise, not a product.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[geekoid]

haha. I won't take a test any more. I'll happily have a conversation about the technology, but I no longer take tests.
I certainly don't write code for free. It's insulting.

Fortunately I have an excellent reputation, so even in crappy times I will get the occasional out of the blue job offer. Yes, offer.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[pooh666]

It is VERY rare, but I did run into one company that posted a sort of puzzle. It was a screen scrapping test with several layers. They did things like inserted hints in custom headers and if you didn't notice those, you would go on following the trail who knows how long to get to the end, which was a the email address to send your resume. So it only took about 30 min to do if you knew your stuff, it could take all day and more if not. It was FUN! btw I got the email address in about 2 hours, I did go down the wrong path for a bit and then went back and started looking at headers and cookies and found the clues.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

You want a good coder? Look at their code. Make them take some written tests and an oral exam. Have them write you something small for free.

Maybe that is specific to rent-a-coder. I do a lot of interviewing for technical positions, and I don't give code challenges. Anything beyond CS101 fodder is too time-consuming, and asking CS101 questions doesn't really tell me anything.

I'm a big fan of "what's the difference?" questions. I'll take two similar technologies from their resume and ask what's the difference between them. It tests both the candidate's level of experience, as well as the candidate's ability to think and articulate an answer.

I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[mooingyak]

Most of the good coders I know would walk right on out the door if the first thing you asked them to do was write something for free.

If it's something that is likely to have commercial value, then I'm with you on that. But if it's obviously some demo code with the express purpose of showing whether or not you have a clue what you're doing, then it's not a problem.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Just post your string here:

http://www.string-functions.com/reverse.aspx

Now gimme that job!

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[elnyka]

You want a good coder? ... Have them write you something small for free.

Most of the good coders I know would walk right on out the door if the first thing you asked them to do was write something for free.

Even if what they are asked to write is a function that calculates the GCD of two numbers, or a pseudocode showing one understands a classic algorithm or data structure (which btw are very legit coding questions for an interview)?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that is specific to rent-a-coder. I do a lot of interviewing for technical positions, and I don't give code challenges. Anything beyond CS101 fodder is too time-consuming, and asking CS101 questions doesn't really tell me anything.

I'm a big fan of "what's the difference?" questions. I'll take two similar technologies from their resume and ask what's the difference between them. It tests both the candidate's level of experience, as well as the candidate's ability to think and articulate an answer.

I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

With C... you have enough power to shoot yourself in the foot.

With C++... you can make mistakes that take off your entire leg.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[GasparGMSwordsman]

But write a short class? Esp during the interview process?

I completely agree that this is both useful and acceptable. Actually this is probably what the OP meant but it didn't sound that way.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

Anyone applying for a programming job at any level should welcome being asked any programming problem the equivalent of FizzBuzz. The simple fact is, 99% of applicants for an entry-level coding position cannot program at all (regardles of degree or claimed experience), and (in my experience) 2/3s of people with 20+ years of experience at well-known companies still cannot program at all. You would be amazed.

Seriously, you want to work for a company that asks applicants to write at least some trivial code during the interview, because the alternative is very scary indeed.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[gillbates]

And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?"

Ahem! Every C coder worth their salt knows that C++ is just one better than C.

A really knowledgeable C coder would point out that because of the order of operations, assigning a C++ coder to a C++ position might not give the results you want. Consider:

C_Coder C;
c_plus_plus_position = C++;

In this example, c_plus_plus_position is actually filled by C, not C++, because the postfix ++ operator increments after the assignment. Many HR folks get caught up by code such as this. (For example, consider how many JavaScript programmers got interviews for Java positions...)

One of the tests I like to give C++ programmers is to ask them what is wrong with this code:

char * password = "password";
... more code ...
printf("Enter your password:");
scanf("%s",&password);
... verify_password(password);

Most C programmers spot the mistake immediately; they aren't distracted by printf() and scanf(). A few C++ coders might recognize that password isn't private! Any hacker who runs a "HEX EDITOR" on your code can see your password!

Unbelievably, most of the C++ coders miss this point! Some try to rewrite it with cin and cout - as if that would fix the problem! Still others mention some gobblygook about stacking dishes and overflowing the sink, or something like that. What they don't realize is that C++ - using information hiding - can hide the passwords in your code from prying eyes. They even have a keyword for it - private - which means that hackers can't see it.

It's amazing to me to see how many C++ programmers don't understand the better security of C++.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

If you think it's insulting to prove that you can actually, you know, write code, then you've never been heavily involved in hiring programmers. It is simply not reasonable for a company to assume that, simply because you have N years of programming experience on your resume, you can actually write any code at all. Yes, I know it sounds like a reasonable assumption, because the years of software development on your resume involved actual software development, but believe me the opposite is common.

Never be insulted if you're asked to reverse a string, or a linked list, or some similar test. You'd be amazed at the last of correlation between resume text and the ability to perform such things.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[gestalt_n_pepper]

And as someone who codes, and has hired coders, I would reply "Please don't let the door hit you on the way out, and by the way, there are 199 other people waiting to interview for that position. Please try and stay out of their way as you go down the stairs."

And by the way, the fact that you didn't get that "write something for free" means, a small, noncommercial piece of sample code that demonstrates that you know how to create class foo with a member function that loops from 1 to 10, exits appropriately and returns a string that says "I'm finished." is indication number two that you are a f***ing lamebrain with neither perspective nor common sense.

In short, you just lost the job due to stupidity, an overblown sense of entitlement and childish arrogance. I have time for none of these.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[joggle]

That's one of those questions where I may get lost in the details. I've written a lot of 'pure' C code and plenty of C++ code over the years and am very familiar with the differences between C and C++. I could go into style differences (such as setting null pointers in C to 'NULL' rather than setting them to '0' in C++), or trivial, antiquated differences (such as C-style comments vs. C++ comments), syntax differences (such as the difference between a C-style struct and a C++-style struct), or the enormous number of additions to the C language by C++ (such as the various C++ cast operators, classes, templates, polymorphism, being able to declare variables at locations other than the beginning of a block, etc) which would nearly turn into a ad-hoc lecture of the C++ language (considering how C is such a small part of the C++ language spec). Or I could go into even more arcane differences such as the difference between C-style linking and C++-style linking and explain why 'extern "C" {}' must be used when including C headers (unless those headers already have it of course), or try to recall the differences between malloc() and new().

To keep it from spiraling into a ridiculously long answer, what would be the most appropriate response? Focus on details that may show that you are fully aware of the differences between C and C++ (like the difference between C and C++ structs)? Or try to give a high-level overview listing some of the major additions by C++ to C (such as classes and more type safety)? Or maybe explain why you would use C rather than C++ (or visa-versa)?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[aclarke]

Early on in my career, I showed up for an interview. I drove 30 minutes to get there, was in my suit, and ready to rock. I got there, and the front desk person handed me a 10 page document, and told me to sit down and fill it in. I hadn't even met anybody else yet. It was a programming test. I filled in a page or two, decided I didn't want to work at a place like that, and walked out.

I later interviewed at a large corporation as a Perl programmer. I passed all the interviews, and then they wanted me to write a Perl programme to show them I actually did know what I was talking about. I took their specs, which they said should take maybe an hour to finish. It took me 7 hours. I handed it in, along with my notes on where their specs were vague and why I'd taken the route I had. I got the job and they rewrote the test after that.

Maybe I'm a good programmer or maybe I'm not, but I'm with you that programmers will be more likely to take a test when the risk/reward balance is topped to the correct side.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

Personally, I'm looking for 2 things in the answer. The basic, pass fail: "C++ is C with classes". The answer that demonstrates such a keen understanding of good programming that it outweighs almost everything else in the interview if you know it: "with C++ I can automate resource clean up, such as freeing memory and closing files, so that most code just can't have a resource leak and I don't waste time on such bugs".

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

"Please don't let the door hit you on the way out, and by the way, there are 199 other people waiting to interview for that position."

Exactly what this article is about; driving away the good ones to leave the 199 crappy ones. Good work, perhaps you should write your own follow-up.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[PachmanP]

"What's the difference between C and C++?"

C is just C. Whereas C++ increments C by 1. duh.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[oldspewey]

Angry much?

FWIW, I am not a professional coder (though I sometimes tinker in my moments of increasingly rare spare time) but I work shoulder-to-shoulder with plenty of them in the course of the work I do. So when I said "Most of the good coders I know would walk right on out the door" I literally meant the good coders I know; the guys I've had dinner with after a brutal day on the client site, or spent an hour and a half chatting at the airport while waiting for our flight. We talk about things, sometimes about ridiculous job opportunities they've been presented with, and what kinds of things send them walking out the door.

Another thing that tends to send quality individuals running for the exits are angry and irrational outbursts that include insults when confronted with a differing opinion.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[joggle]

OK, then explaining the difference between a C and C++ struct would do that. In the process I could also point out something that some very good C++ programmers I've known weren't aware of--the difference between a C++ struct and a C++ class (a C++ struct simply is a class with members default to public--that's the only difference).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

To keep it from spiraling into a ridiculously long answer, what would be the most appropriate response?

That's the beauty of open-ended questions. I get to see how the candidate thinks.

There's no single right or "most appropriate" response, but there are plenty of wrong responses. My expected response is what you describe as:

Or try to give a high-level overview listing some of the major additions by C++ to C (such as classes and more type safety)?

But think about what some of your other answers would tell me.

If you gave me your first few answers and just left it at that, I'd understand that you had hands-on experience with both languages, but pointing out the differences in comment style would make me want to probe your soft skills a bit. So I'd ask for one or two high-level differences that might make me choose one solution over the other (just to be sure), and then I'd switch to soft-skill questions.

In other words, giving an answer other than what I expect isn't going to doom the interview, but it will definitely help determine its course. :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Psychochild]

Usually adding the modifier "for free" means that you're asking them to do something they would normally charge for. I don't know any real consultant who would ask to get paid for something like you describe, so the qualifier "for free" isn't necessary and is, in fact, misleading.

So, you failed to get some possibly good programmers because you have an insufficient command of English. I hear overseas outsourcing works cheap, though, and those workers might speak your native tongue.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[jcr]

Every C coder worth their salt knows that C++ is just one better than C.

Better?

-jcr

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[jollyreaper]

I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

It's two plusses or "one" better than regular old C. *witless smirk*

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[plague3106]

Lets see... use the time after I'm done my FT employement to write a pointless code sample for an interview, or use that time to do consulting work for which I'll be paid.. hmm...

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[bjk002]

Bravo! Point finally made. Thank you Sir!

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[bjk002]

That does sound fun, and probably EXACTLY the type of gimmick that would attract real talent.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Eery C coder worth their salt knows that C++ is just one better than C.

Or not.

#define C 0

int main() {
        C++;
        return 0;
}

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[X0563511]

All 10-15 minutes of said time?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[LateArthurDent]

Personally, I'm looking for 2 things in the answer. The basic, pass fail: "C++ is C with classes". The answer that demonstrates such a keen understanding of good programming that it outweighs almost everything else in the interview if you know it: "with C++ I can automate resource clean up, such as freeing memory and closing files, so that most code just can't have a resource leak and I don't waste time on such bugs".

Eh..."C++ is object-oriented" is the most obvious "pass/fail answer." That said, C++ doesn't really automate resource cleanup that much better than C. Sure, auto_ptr and destructors are nice, but you can still screw yourself up and leak memory in thousands of other ways, so I'm not sure your second answer is really that good. It's not like you can't have a well-organized C code that minimizes your chances of forgetting to clean up resources, in the same way that C++ does it. If you really wanted to, you could write code that mimics object-oriented code very well in C, although you really don't need it. Just a set of best practices is usually enough, and C++ is no replacement for them.

All of that said, I do like C++ a lot. I just don't really agree with your best answer there :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[plague3106]

And as someone who codes, and has hired coders, I would reply "Please don't let the door hit you on the way out, and by the way, there are 199 other people waiting to interview for that position. Please try and stay out of their way as you go down the stairs."

Prepare to be very understaffed in a few years. People may put up with shit like that if they need ANY job, but once the market rebounds, they'll remember it and be out the door exteremly quickly.

And by the way, the fact that you didn't get that "write something for free" means, a small, noncommercial piece of sample code that demonstrates that you know how to create class foo with a member function that loops from 1 to 10, exits appropriately and returns a string that says "I'm finished." is indication number two that you are a f***ing lamebrain with neither perspective nor common sense.

If that's all you've asked for, I honestly don't know why you'd bother with it.

In short, you just lost the job due to stupidity, an overblown sense of entitlement and childish arrogance. I have time for none of these.

I guess if that matters depends on the person leaving. Not everyone looking for a job is unemployed or even underemployed.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

you misunderstand the meaning of private. I assure you that with an hex ediotor you will see it to

Ho I see it now, it is humour

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[forkazoo]

I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

The difference is that C++ complains less when I put functions in a struct. But, I prefer C anyways because I can name a variable "class." For some reason, C++ complains when I try and do simple stuff like that, so I guess it just isn't as complete of a language as C yet, since it has such weird restrictions on variable names.

What do I win?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[DeadDecoy]

I had a friend who was once asked to write a network protocol as an 'exercise'. He was hired based on his example code. The funny thing is, when he came to work, he noticed his code was actually being used in their software. Sometimes it's an exercise, sometimes it's free work, sometimes it's both.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

I left out the other key thing: "C++ has string, vector, and map classes so I don't have to re-invent those, or constantly worry about buffer sizes." That's actually pretty important, though I ask about that more explicity in an interview instead of fishing for that answer with vague questions.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Tenek]

If you have a full-time job you like and do consulting work on the side, why would you be applying for another job? If you hate your job, it's probably worth a code sample or two to get a better one.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[donaggie03]

I thought classes were on the heap and structs were on the stack . . .or is that just in c#?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[forkazoo]

Unbelievably, most of the C++ coders miss this point! Some try to rewrite it with cin and cout - as if that would fix the problem! Still others mention some gobblygook about stacking dishes and overflowing the sink, or something like that. What they don't realize is that C++ - using information hiding - can hide the passwords in your code from prying eyes. They even have a keyword for it - private - which means that hackers can't see it.

Of course, the gobblygook answer about overflowing the stack is a good starting point, it assumes more than you are actually guaranteed. For example, on an embedded system, the "password" text may wind up in ROM. When you try to scanf into a pointer than is pointing to an address in ROM, you can rest assured that you won't actually overflow the stack. (Especially if the password you input is adequately short.) Still, even with a short password, the results might not be quite what you had been hoping.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

%> perl -le 'print reverse split//,shift' mystring
OR
%> perl -le '$x=reverse(shift);print $x' mystring

At least I WROTE some code!

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

What do I win?

A malloc to the head.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, you just lost the job due to stupidity, an overblown sense of entitlement and childish arrogance.

Maybe, but since I didn't want to work for a condescending dick, I'll still chalk that up as a win.

I have time for none of these.

The fact that you replied demonstrates otherwise.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

That's C#. In C++, "struct {" has exactly the same meaning as "class { public:", although many programming style guides use the keywords as strong hints about the object you're defining.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[feepness]

"What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

"1". Afterwards of course.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[frosty_tsm]

This reminds me of the movie Mercury Rising.

If you were autistic, you'd have figured it out in 5 minutes. :-p

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[frosty_tsm]

What do I win?

A malloc to the head.

Not head.free()?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[cusco]

This is the third post today where I've thought, "Damn I wish I could mod that up!" Why do I only get mod points when the page is full of Idle crap?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[ralphdaugherty]

Most of the good coders I know would walk right on out the door if the first thing you asked them to do was write something for free.

      While I generally subscribe to that philosophy, if the company has a standard requirement to write a program as part of the interview, I write it.

      And I've found that as a result of that requirement, when I get hired after the test I'm working with only good coders. Has happened twice in my career, including current job.

  rd

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[cybergrue]

Umm. I think that depends on which standard version of C++ you are using.
Classes in C++ were originally implemented as a C struct with function pointers for the methods. (Long Long ago in a ... ) and the public/private aspect was hacked on top. I haven't kept up with the latest C++ standards to know how much this has changed over time but I do believe that this is one of the areas where it is now very different from the old implementation and as a result inherently incompatible with C.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[joggle]

I'm going off of the C++ Programming Language, third edition by Bjarne Stroustrup (page 234):

By definition, a struct is a class in which members are by default public; that is,

struct s { ...

is simply shorthand for

class s { public: ...

It's been this way for a very long time, at least since I started programming in C++ in the late 90s (the book I cited was published in '97).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[DarthVain]

I went for a fairly high level IT job interview about half a year ago or so. It seemed like a perfect position to me. A lot more money, doing many of the things that I do now, however with a bit more latitude, responsibility, and authority which is something I had been craving for some time. Anyway I did my due diligence on the group I would be working for, what they were all about, what sort of things they were looking for, what they do, their data and system needs, I even brushed up on some technology that I knew they would be interested in that I hadn't had all that much experience in (SQL Server, as most the stuff I do is in Oracle). Anyway long story short I actually prepared much more than I usually would have as I was actually really interested in the position itself (not just the money, which was a big bonus). Aside form the technical aspect there was also a large IM component.

The only thing that had me a bit worried was that I literally hadn't done an interview in like 10 years, so I would be rusty. When I got my current position I was doing interviews all the time, so you get kind of good at it, or at least comfortable.

Anyway I am being interviewed and you know what the first question was?

"What is a Database?"

Seriously.
I haven't answered that question in a definition type form since like CS101, like 15 years ago! I must have stared blankly at them for a 3 count.

Anyway I stammered out a response that was more or less adequate, but it threw the rest of my interview off. I was expecting to be asked technical questions on this sort of thing, how to solve problems, design questions, technology opinions and comparisons, etc.. not answer basic academic questions. If it was an entry level job maybe, but not for job this elevated!

I was also a bit unsure as to when to call it off, as my definitions started getting really long and involved. I mean I have taken a ton of different database courses in school, and read textbooks in the thousands of pages. I mean I started off with the components, of organized data, related tables, keys, etc... then I would remember stuff about well technically not all databases are relational, just the modern ones we usually use, etc... I also remembered halfway through the interview that I called it "cells" not "elements" which was probably technically incorrect. In all it totally made me second guess and go blank on a lot of other things, because I couldn't stop thinking about that stupid question and what I may or may not have forgot to say about it. I was pretty confidant when I went in about knowing my stuff, as I had been physically doing a job like it for 10 years or so. Best way I can describe is that one silly question threw me for a loop, from which I barely recovered.

In the end I didn't get it (lets say I wasn't surprised). They had hundreds of applications from across the country, and only interviewed 8, and I was told that any of the 8 were qualified to do the job, just that someone scored higher than me. As soon as they said that all I could think of was that stupid "What is a database?" question... Oh well. I guess it never hurts to brush up on the basics before any interview I suppose! :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Scarletdown]

I'm a big fan of "what's the difference?" questions. I'll take two similar technologies from their resume and ask what's the difference between them. It tests both the candidate's level of experience, as well as the candidate's ability to think and articulate an answer.

What is the difference between a programmer and a coder?

Would that be a good question to start with? :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Scarletdown]

Or a reboot to the head.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[ralphdaugherty]

To keep it from spiraling into a ridiculously long answer, what would be the most appropriate response?

      I'm not a C or C++ career programmer, but wouldn't the appropriate response be that C++ is object oriented, that if not writing with C++ classes then you're using the C subset of C++?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[mooingyak]

Seriously, you want to work for a company that asks applicants to write at least some trivial code during the interview, because the alternative is very scary indeed.

I learned early on that an offer made quickly after a very easy interview means you should probably run screaming.

The two major problems with that were:
1. If everyone goes through the same process, then there's a good chance most of your co-workers are not very good.
2. If the interview process isn't painful for the employer to conduct, it won't bother them too much to repeat it for your replacement.

I took a job offered way too quickly once. I had my doubts but it was a 40% salary increase so I went with it. Turns out my skillset was actually a poor fit for the job, which would probably have become obvious with a marginally longer interview.

Two months later I was unemployed, and three months after that when my savings dried up and my father covered a month's rent for me I ended up going back to an old employer hat in hand to take a salary less than what I had been making at the place I just left.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[ralphdaugherty]

Maybe I'm a good programmer or maybe I'm not, but I'm with you that programmers will be more likely to take a test when the risk/reward balance is topped to the correct side.

      Well put. Excellent comparison. And it's clear you are a good programmer. A one hour estimate taking seven hours to do correctly is par for our industry.

  rd

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

"What is a Database?"

That question has me scratching my head a bit. As to its purpose, I mean.

If I were in your shoes, I probably would have said something like, "A computer system that accepts data for later retrieval. Naturally, the topic of databases is broad. Would you like for me to discuss any specific aspect of databases with you?"

If it were me conducting the interview, and it was some type of DBA position, perhaps I would have asked something like, "What are some basic tuning considerations for OLTP vs. OLAP data stores?"

I'll come right out and say I have no clue what the answer to that question is. On the other hand, I've been working with computer systems for about 30 years, so if I get an answer that sounds like something other than "OLTP is optimized for inserts and quick retrievals of discrete amounts of data, whereas OLAP is tuned for querying data and things that look more like analysis and a constantly-growing dataset", I can look it up after the fact to see if my candidate is a crackpot or if I'm the crackpot. :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[mooingyak]

I got there, and the front desk person handed me a 10 page document, and told me to sit down and fill it in.

These are often boilerplate forms that nobody cares about but feel as though they really must ask applicants for some odd reason. Often no one outside of HR realizes what's happening and by the time anyone new is comfortable enough to make critical suggestions they've completely forgotten what was a relatively minor part of their interview.

I'll fill in something with my name and address (once!) and some other general information and skip over everything else. If it seems like the interview might actually go somewhere then I'll provide much more info if they need it, but they typically don't. If they want you, any HR flak who complains "But he didn't fill out XYZ" will be told to call you up and get the relevant info.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[StikyPad]

To keep it from spiraling into a ridiculously long answer, what would be the most appropriate response?

I can't speak to the specific OP above, but interviewing is almost always best served by a top-down approach. Like court, your goal is NOT to provide every detail; it's to leave the "jury" with a favorable impression. So, unless he says "list 5 differences," (and even if he does) then just start with a general description, and then present individual examples as requested. I.E., difference between C/C++: you might say that C++ is a near superset of C, then wait for him to ask what you mean. That also gives you time to think (although "what's the difference between" questions are pretty common, so you should probably have some examples ready.)

Also -- though not specific to this topic, per se -- one of the best things to do is ask lots of questions. Become the interviewer. What tools do they use? What conventions? What hardware? What development process? That shows you're familiar with the job (or implies it), and also puts you on more even footing, which makes them view you more as a colleague than a candidate. It also gives you a chance to build a rapport by complimenting their choices, or at least showing an interest.

One other note.. even if you can tell from the moment you set foot in the door that you'll hate the place, or that working there would be an insult to your abilities, don't let it show. You never know what an offer might be like, and you can always use one offer as leverage against another. (You can actually do this without an actual offer, but it helps to have the real thing).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

      I'm not a C or C++ career programmer, but wouldn't the appropriate response be that C++ is object oriented, that if not writing with C++ classes then you're using the C subset of C++?

If I were interviewing for a C++ position, I'd want to hear about memory management as well, at the very least. If constructors/destructors/new/delete didn't strike you as a huge improvement over malloc/free, then I'd be a little concerned. :)

But if it were for a position in an unrelated area of expertise, I wouldn't hold it against you.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[zero_out]

I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.

As someone who is 90% Java, 10% C++, with a CS degree but somewhere between junior and mid level in my career, I would say:

C gives you structs, but C++ gives true objects and all the OO glory that they entail

I assume that I failed your test

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[electrosoccertux]

And as someone who codes, and has hired coders, I would reply "Please don't let the door hit you on the way out, and by the way, there are 199 other people waiting to interview for that position. Please try and stay out of their way as you go down the stairs."

And by the way, the fact that you didn't get that "write something for free" means, a small, noncommercial piece of sample code that demonstrates that you know how to create class foo with a member function that loops from 1 to 10, exits appropriately and returns a string that says "I'm finished." is indication number two that you are a f***ing lamebrain with neither perspective nor common sense.

In short, you just lost the job due to stupidity, an overblown sense of entitlement and childish arrogance. I have time for none of these.

because professionals use language like this all the time.
Actually, they don't.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

I left out the other key thing: "C++ has string, vector, and map classes so I don't have to re-invent those, or constantly worry about buffer sizes." That's actually pretty important, though I ask about that more explicity in an interview instead of fishing for that answer with vague questions.

Yeah, I don't really care if the candidate brought up my favorite pet difference or not when I ask an open-ended question. You can learn a lot about a candidate based on what pops into his head first, nevermind if the answer is even correct.

For instance, if the candidate started going off on the C vs. C++ standard library, I'd start to think that this is going to be a heads-down coder, and not someone who is architecting systems. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just trying to see where the person is.

And don't get me wrong, it's definitely a good answer. I don't want a junior programmer reimplementing standard library data structures.

But that answer is definitely trees, not forest.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[ralphdaugherty]

I had a friend who was once asked to write a network protocol as an 'exercise'. He was hired based on his example code. The funny thing is, when he came to work, he noticed his code was actually being used in their software. Sometimes it's an exercise, sometimes it's free work, sometimes it's both.

      Did your friend tell you how long he worked on this 'exercise'?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[weicco]

I was once asked to write database engine in C++ after a two hour interview. They said I had two weeks to write it. Do I need to say I refused and told them that if I could write a DB engine in two weeks I wouldn't be applying to work for them, but instead I would've been applying to work for MS or Oracle? I guess not :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Slashdot Parent]

As someone who is 90% Java, 10% C++, with a CS degree but somewhere between junior and mid level in my career, I would say:

C gives you structs, but C++ gives true objects and all the OO glory that they entail

I assume that I failed your test

The beauty of an open-ended question like that is that there isn't really a right or wrong answer, and there is no test to pass or fail in any given question.

If you gave me that answer, I'd assume you had a passing familiarity with C and/or C++, as opposed to a deep knowledge and understanding. Not that there's anything wrong with that--you're not trying to pass yourself off as experienced in C++. Where we went from there would depend on the requirements of the position.

If it was a C++ position, we'd go right into the areas of C++ that are required and you'd either sink or swim.

If it was for a Java position, I'd probably segue into Java by seeing if you could tell me a few differences between Java and C++, before getting into the specific areas of Java that the position required.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Do you work in Utah or something? I'm afraid that in all areas where I worked (banks in San Francisco, software houses in Houston and New Mexico), a certain amount of profanity made its way into normal daytime conversation, particularly when the circumstances became unusually frustrating.

Look, I understand that my position threatens a lot of you, but I'm fairly typical of many people who've had management jobs and simply don't have a lot of tolerance for either gross incompetence or erratic prima donnas. I've fired both types before, and probably will again. I'd rather have a mediocre guy who comments his code in readable English, makes the code readable and maintainable, and comes to work regularly than a genius who writes brilliant but unmaintainable code, comments nothing and wants to work at home ALL the time.

So if you want, walk out the door. Please. You're doing me the favor of not having to bother to fire you later or try and untangle the "brilliant" code/hairball left for us lesser mortals.

 

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a troll?
Private just means you can't get the compiler to give you direct easy access. It doesn't actually hide the password, it's still sitting there in memory, and anybody can happily dig it out of memory. Private doesn't provide any actual security, it just enforces scope/namespace restrictions on the compiler.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[JesseMcDonald]

Sure, you can leak resources in C++ in all the same ways as in C. However, C++ does have two major advantages when it comes to resource management:

1) Via destructors, you can register a block of code to run automatically when something goes out of scope through any standard flow control construct, e.g. return, break, continue, etc. In C, when you may return from a block in more than one way, you must either duplicate the clean-up code at each exit point or distort the structure of your routine to always pass through the clean-up code on its way out.

As clean-up function, C++ destructors aren't anything particularly new; you can do the same in C by manually calling a clean-up routine. However, the fact that destructors for stack variables are invoked automatically at the end of the block is unique to C++, and (when used properly) helps to eliminate a significant source of leaks by grouping initialization and clean-up rules in a single declaration.

2) C++ has built-in, first-class exception handling which runs these destructors while unwinding the stack, so you don't leak resources as easily when recovering from errors. The closest C equivalent, setjmp/longjmp, does not release resources when longjmp is invoked. A common alternative, returning an error code and testing for it in the caller, tends to suffer from the multiple-exit issue described above.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

You have time for none of these? I'm sorry... what web page are you reading and responding to?

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[anarche]

I did a written "programming" test on Thursday (and passed! - now for the interview). I was ok with it, since I knew that thats what I was there for.

Except question 10, the correct answer was not one of the available answers. So two sheets of paper later, explaining how the pseudo-code works and why all the answers are wrong, and bingo interview! ("Call you by Wednesday! Huh!")

Also took the time to correct the spelling of "colour" throughout the test.

I may not be a good programmer (yet), but I'm an expert Grammar Nazi.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[thetoadwarrior]

Last guy that I knew that took the stance that tests are beneath him was a contractor who worked along side me for £300 a day. He wasn't doing something I couldn't do. I purely didn't have enough time to cover someone's work who had left and cover my own.

I gave him some work for a script that generated files for the main project. There was very little he needed to know about the main project since the XSL to format the data was already complete.

He did a a half assed job and didn't complete it nor did he take on anything I told him. In fact, it wasn't coding (by the look of it) that was the problem. It was his shitty attitude. He felt he knew better and he did not. My guess is his refusal to do a simple little coding test also stems from him thinking he's hot shit. I don't want to work with a cock so next time I run into someone who thinks a test is beneath them, they're definitely going to be told "no thanks" and we'll keep looking.

The best guy I've ever worked with did the test and completed, at best, 40% of it. But he documented why he did what he did and why he didn't achieve 100% completion all completed before I came back to check on him.

Like with the test he just gets in and does it best to his knowledge. Where he's lacking he researches and asks questions rather than acting like an arrogant cock. His code is very good and I can't fault him at all. I believe this comes from his dedication in everything including the interview.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[anarche]

Seconded, and I just spent all mine on the(old) Java exploit thread :(

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[thetoadwarrior]

I think his wording is poor. I doubt he wants them to write software they'll use for free. Doing some sort of coding as part of the interview shouldn't be an issue. Like anything else some companies take an interview idea and implement it poorly and some do it right.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Brian Feldman]

Wow, you think brilliant code is maintainable and mediocre code is readable? Too bad no one fired you from your job before you totally fucked up the developer staff there, I guess.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[donscarletti]

I have written sample code to test many applicants, when I have accidentally fucked up something I didn't mean to it is very hard to get the answer I am looking for. If an applicant pointed out that you were passing char ** to scanf instead of char *, you can hardly say that they are wrong, but even though they are right, they still accomplished something that could have been done quite well by their compiler (well, most do scanf format checking these days). Also, you can hardly say that code there has a buffer overflow issue since on most modern systems you will get a memory protection exception (segfault) as soon as you start writing over that constant string, your code will not run, but that is not the same as a security hole. If you want a potential buffer overflow identified, you need to write good code with that as its only problem.

Also, fair point about information hiding, luckily one can use C++ to implement SHA256 using template metaprogramming and have your sensitive password saved as a hash at compile time. C would require an external tool for that, although an external tool is probably the right way to do it in C++ too, but the option is still there.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[mooingyak]

brilliant but unmaintainable code

I've read most of your comments in this thread and largely agree with you. However, there is no such thing as brilliant but unmaintainable code. Brilliant code is typically something you would never have thought of doing, but what it does and how to change it is immediately obvious when you look at it.

I worked with a guy who was very smart and could solve problems that most of the rest of the staff would have trouble with... and I advocating firing him because it was less of a time drain for me to help the other guys figure out a good way to solve the tough problems they ran into than it was to help them figure out what the hell genius boy had done. Most of his code required total rewrites in order to make useful changes. I suspect you meant that kind of coder. Solving difficult problems does not necessarily amount to brilliant code, and sometimes simple problems can have brilliant solutions.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

I have similar problems in the sys admin space. Last group of interviewees couldn't answer basic questions about the technologies they list on their CVs. Not one answered correctly any questions about DNS. I go a bit on gut feel too - not very scientific but a confident response works better for my customers than a non-confident one and I think if they struggle to come up with the correct answer it is because they might not be very experienced in that area. You really can't tell how well they go until they start but these things help, I hate having to let people go.

PS, your difference between C/C++ question - the first thing that came to my mind was C++ extends C with OOP features such as classes. I figure there must be more but the top hit in google didn't say more than that. Now I'm no programmer but its people like me who get lucky with the questions asked that sneak through you would only be able to tell they are lousy until they start. Luckily there will generally be a probation period for which you can let them go without any penalty.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[joggle]

This is also great for avoiding deadlocks in multi-threaded code. I love using scoped mutexes since they are guaranteed to become unlocked even if an exception is thrown (thanks to the nifty destructor).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[joggle]

Err, scoped locks that is (something like Qt's QMutexLocker: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/qmutexlocker.html).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[russotto]

However, there is no such thing as brilliant but unmaintainable code.

There is, but there's not much call for it nowadays. The kind of stuff Steve Wozniak could do in 256 bytes of 6502 assembler (e.g. stuff which behaved differently -- and usefully differently -- if you jumped into the middle of an instruction).

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[IchBinEinPenguin]

Fine.

As long as you don't mind if I GPL it.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Skal Tura]

Google did something similar too. Quizzes work for us coders, we like them, and are willing even to code a small thing for free as puzzle. Like handling in PHP atomic operations in parallel where you get 300req/s, so your timeframe to do your atomic operations is very small. In that case it was a locking mechanism for cache engine -> without which DB would be always overloaded when 30 processes are requesting the same thing, and then trying to write the same thing causing cache to be practically corrupted. It was a fun task :)

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[Skal Tura]

Hell no! At least in web development, finding even average web developer here is very hard. Finding truly excellent ones? Immensively hard.

And almost all developers seems to be completely ignorant about the most important factor of code: Simplicity. With simple code you get the most maintainability, highest speed of execution and best development speed.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

Whether or not C++ is "object-oriented" is a holy war on par with VI vs EMACS or whether goto is harmful. It's only the most obvious answer if you've only ever seen the common commercial languages. Personally I think the rise of Java proves you don't need a "real OOL" for business coding, but still "C++ has classes" is the non-contentious way of putting it for anyone with a background in studying programming language design. But maybe that's only important for older devopers.

It's not like you can't have a well-organized C code that minimizes your chances of forgetting to clean up resources, in the same way that C++ does it. If you really wanted to, you could write code that mimics object-oriented code very well in C

Nope, sorry, that's simply incorrect: you've just never seen it done right in C++. There is a specific C++ programming style that removes ordinary human error from freeing memory, closing files, releasing resource locks, etc, etc. If done right, any given resource freeing function (delete, free(), delete[], CloseFile(), whatever) appears only once in your entire codebase - and that in a one-line templated typedef.

It works better than garbage collection, because you know exactly when resources will be free, and so don't have to worry about someone forgetting to use a "using" block (or the equivalent in Java). Of course, the new C++ standard also has opt-in garbage collection, but you really only need that to implement circular graphs.

Or, in other words, if a candidate mentions auto_ptr instead of shared_ptr, I know there will be a style learning curve.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[lgw]

Well, I would only be asking silly questions like that of junior programmers to begin with, and so a "heads-down coder" would be an ideal find, as opposed to all the candidates who think they will be architecting systems but can't actually write a single line of code.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[WiPEOUT]

I do a lot of interviewing for technical positions, and I don't give code challenges. Anything beyond CS101 fodder is too time-consuming, and asking CS101 questions doesn't really tell me anything ... I'm a big fan of "what's the difference?" questions. I'll take two similar technologies from their resume and ask what's the difference between them.

This is how I do it, too, asking first for the difference then for examples of where you'd use each. I find it's much more time-efficient than programming exams.

Re:I see lousy coders.... everywhere

[alexo]

if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?"

My first reaction would be to say that the expression C/C++ is undefined in both C and C++.

Recruitment Agencies

[hattig]

Use a recruitment agency.

Most of them just do buzzword matching on CVs rather than actual filtering by skill, so you'll get some really rubbish dregs turn up with inflated CVs.

Also, try to get one going through a relationship break-up (especially an expensive divorce), or one with criminal/drug addict children / wife. These will increase their productivity as they will want to stay in work.

Re:Recruitment Agencies

[oldspewey]

Recruiters are a great source of entertainment.

Week 1: "Technology XYZ is really hot right now. If you can put some of that on your resume I can get you all kinds of interviews."

Week 12: "Technology ABC is really hot right now. If you can put some of that on your resume I can get you all kinds of interviews."

Week 24: "Say, do you know anything about technology QRS? I was just talking to the program director at one of my biggest clients and ..."

Re:Recruitment Agencies

[lgw]

My favorite result from a recruiter - and this was an "in-house" recruiter, which are often the best - is this story. We were building a Windows appliance, so I was looking for a UI programmer with Windows experience and any kind of background with industrial automation or appliance UIs. Any experience with blade server management a plus.

I got resumes from guys who had done industrial automaiton for ... manufacturing window frames ... and turbine blades. There really is nothing going on in these guys' heads: it's just keyword matching, nothing more.

How to Find Bad Programmers

[johie]

What'ya gona do with them?

Re:How to Find Bad Programmers

[Farmer Tim]

That's what the roll of carpet and shovel is for...

Re:How to Find Bad Programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

The author is clueless and the article is insulting. Like your self, I'm wondering the same thing. Actually what the fuck does is this shit doing on Slashdot?

Re:How to Find Bad Programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's satire. Anyone who's been looking through postings on job sites is quite familiar with the tips in this article.

Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people...

[wandazulu]

Just use Poi.

Fuud

[indre1]

We offer free coffee for your 20-hour shift for a few days before the release.

BUT nobody mentions that you still get paid for the regular 8-hours.

Never ask technical questions during the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Happened to me many times!

Agism rears its ugly head again

[Anonymous Coward]

Young programmers always say things like "proficiency with the technology is more important than years of experience" and "Old programmers probably can't make use of new technologies" and "I don't have much working experience but I guarantee I am a better choice that someone who does, just because I am that smart!"

Once they work for a while, get bitten a few times by their own crappy code, learn a few things, and realize just how worthless they actually were right after they graduated...they change their tune. It never fails.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[FF8Jake]

Agism: Discrimination based on age.

Opening line on the post referencing agism: "Young programmers always say things like..."

More: "Once they work for a while, get bitten a few times by their own crappy code, learn a few things, and realize just how worthless they actually were right after they graduated...they change their tune. It never fails."

Hypocrite much? You sound just as bad as the young programmers you are condemning.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[X0563511]

So what about those of us who DON'T say such nonsense and already respect the Wisdom of Our Elders?

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Anonymous Coward]

Only he's right :) Doesn't matter what he sounds like.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like an old wrinkly out of work COBOL programmer working at McDonald's.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Nutria]

Not cocky enough to be Good.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[lgw]

Discrimination is not a bad word - hiring indiscriminately tends to end badly. Agism is inappropriate discrimination based on age, and it's very rare that young programmers are affected by it. Young == cheap, and managers seem to love that.

For many positions, years of experience is a very helpful indicator of the ability to get things done in engineering. If you have that many years of experience, you'll almost never be rejected for being unusually young (as long as you're at least 18, otherwise the local laws can be a real pain), but you will often be rejected for being unusually old, or for haing too much experience for the position, despite being willing to work for the offered wage.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Luke has no name]

I see you play FF8, you must be a yungin'.

But seriously, you both have a point.

Youthful inexperience can be just as bad as old age in causing arrogance and close-mindedness.

That said, to call every fresh graduate worthless and that they always are claiming proficiency is better... that is off too. I'm quite the humble 21-year old, and I'm willing to learn from the old coots as much as I can.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[FF8Jake]

I agree that not all discrimination is bad; however, the original poster is clearly referring to agism by young programmers as a bad thing, then following up with sweeping statement that all young programmers are worthless right after graduating.

I am not trying to argue that experience has no worth or that older workers have don't issues getting jobs due to age; however, I am stating that the original poster is spewing as much crap about young programmers as the young programmers he is referring to spew about old programmers.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[chaboud]

Proficiency matters more than years of experience, eventually. I haven't met a single fresh-from-the-mill coder with the architectural chops to lead a project or design major systems (though I know they exist), but I've also worked with plenty of 30-or-40-something senior devs who couldn't find their ass with a flashlight and two hours with Design Patterns (and, no, I don't think that the whole world lives in Design Patterns).

There isn't just one type of good programmer, just as there isn't just one type of bad one. When I was 19 and starting my first job, sure, I wrote terrible code. When I was 22, I architected major systems that were fairly well thought out and are still in use today (I'm 30). My improvement came from having my ass kicked by some truly talented older coders.

Of course, a good dev will look at what they wrote 2-3 years ago and say "who wrote this crap?!" Someone who thinks that any more than a few tiny gems of their prior code would be up to snuff today is a crappy coder.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Anonymous Coward]

Proficiency matters more than years of experience

Proficiency only comes with experience. Which isn't to say that everyone with experience becomes proficient, just that those who are proficient became proficient through experience.

The "fresh from the oven" coders who think they're proficient, aren't.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[rainmayun]

Wish I had mod points today to mod this one up. Proficiency with a coding language or even frameworks or libraries only matters to a limited extent. Proficiency in triage and identification of issues, skills in enterprise scale design, preemptive anticipation of issues both technical and bureaucratic, understanding how costs affect your project... this is stuff that the vast majority of employees can only gain via experience. Coding at home with a stack of books or bookmarked Internet tutorials simply won't get you there.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[spazdor]

Everyone knows humility dulls your coding instincts.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[fishexe]

Once they work for a while, get bitten a few times by their own crappy code, learn a few things, and realize just how worthless they actually were right after they graduated...they change their tune. It never fails.

Or maybe once they get old, tied down, and too mentally tired to learn new technologies at a rapid clip, they switch to a philosophy that makes them sound like these are strengths? It's really just a matter of interpretation which direction that phenomenon points...

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[sjames]

Proficiency in any particular thing matters more than the years of experience with that thing does. That doesn't translate to overall experience though. The guy fresh out of school with a year of Java experience won't be as good as the guy with 15 years development experience and a month with Java. Five years Java experience won't trump 1 year of Java and 10 years developing in something else.

Time in service isn't the end-all and be-all though. Some people manage to stay at a job for decades and never become any better at it that they were on day one.

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[Skal Tura]

I can attest to that. It is so true.

Almost everything i did few years back seems crappy now. Even a lot of stuff i made 6-12months ago seems like crap and i could do better job today and some little quick'n'dirty things of just couple weeks back ... But they always look butt ugly when you do code for single time purpose which is going to be scrapped after the single use

Re:Agism rears its ugly head again

[chaboud]

That is the single greatest example of taking a quote out of context that I've seen in a long time.

Removing the ", eventually" removes the entire point of the statement.

for proper badness certification trumps all else

[smoothnorman]

To find a bad programmer (or bad anything actually) hire anyone whose resume/CV features "certified" or "certification" by a corporation that sells the product covered by the certificate (e.g.: "microsoft certified"). The circular nature of such training guarantees a worker who's view is designed to be narrow.

"Visual Basic Developer wanted...."

[Anonymous Coward]

With this subject line, you are sure to get a bad developer. I have never seen a good VB developer.

Re:"Visual Basic Developer wanted...."

[ClosedSource]

Well, I don't know if he's a good VB developer (whatever that means), but I know a guy who has made a lot of money for himself and his company through his VB work, if that counts for anything.

Re:"Visual Basic Developer wanted...."

[elnyka]

With this subject line, you are sure to get a bad developer. I have never seen a good VB developer.

I have. He was good at a lot of other languages and platforms, too. I can pick any tech stack or language (be it application or systems programming), and I can assure you, most of its programmers suck.

Re:"Visual Basic Developer wanted...."

[lgw]

I've also known an excellent VB developer - he knew many languages, but that was the language of the libraries he needed in his engineering specialty (odd as it seems), so that's the right tool for the right job.

On the other hanm, he'd be unlikely to apply for a "Visual Basic Developer" job, as that's not his vauable skill, so maybe there's something to this.

Obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want to find a bad programmer I'll look at the credits for Slashcode.

Re:Crappy programmers - anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

A close acquaintance of mine hired an Indian web developer to build his site. Granted, it was a very simple site I could've done in a day, but the Indian guy did it way cheaper for the whole package - including domain name and hosting. A year later, the site spreads malware (blocked by FF) and the Indian guy is nowhere to be found. My acquaintance can't even get his password to login to the site and disable the malware.

You get what you paid for.

Re:Call Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft full of bad programmers?

Linus Torvalds wouldn't say that.
Theo de Raadt wouldn't say that.
Larry Wall wouldn't say that.
RMS wouldn't say that.
Anybody on a major OSS project wouldn't say that.

The reason we will never win is because the OSS movement consists more of ignorant fanboys than competent programmers dedicated to the cause.

Just ask my boss

[garyisabusyguy]

I can spend weeks posting, reviewing, interviewing, checking up on google, and my boss can still manage to pick the lamest of the group.

It all comes down to being cheap and expecting somebody to brown-nose for a job.

Makes me wonder why I work here

Re:Just ask my boss

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What are you checking up on google? And would making a decision based on any of that information make you liable to a lawsuit?

Perhaps there's a reason you're not the boss...

Re:Just ask my boss

[X0563511]

Makes me wonder why I work here

Oh, you already know that. You don't want to be on the other side of the glass. Can't say I blame you.

Re:Just ask my boss

[Anonymous Coward]

There's all sorts of relevant, pertinent information about people that can be found on Google. And, as long as you don't use anything from one of the legally protected classes of information to base your hiring on (such as race, religion, gender, etc), you'd be a fool not to use it.

I once had a candidate tell me they were the primary developer of a certain open source application. By looking them and the project up on Google, I was able to determine they were lying out of their ass. So, I was able to weed them out.

Re:Just ask my boss

[garyisabusyguy]

Good question...

I had one candidate who sold their self as an experienced Business Analyst. By googling them, I found a posting by somebody with the same name, location and contact number who listed their experience as Admin Assistant with relevant skills in typing, scheduling and filing. Hardly what they claimed on their resume.

In another case I flew a candidate out for an interview, only to find that they posted to their myspace how they 'jacked' a free trip out of some sucker and were heading to Mexico for a vacation after the interview since we flew them out here.

Neither one got my recommendation, hardly grounds for any lawsuit

Re:Just ask my boss

[mujadaddy]

Business Analyst

experience as Admin Assistant with relevant skills in typing, scheduling and filing

They sound overqualified. Can they suck the life out of a roomful of people?

I'd rather avoid the bad ones myself.

[Gr8Apes]

Most of the unemployed and many of the employed "programmers" are bad.

Finding bad programmers is easy, it's finding even the merely competent ones that is hard.

TPS REPORTS and OTHER PHB stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

put in the job add stuff like lots of paper work

80 Hour work weeks

Must be able to work remotely with our over seas team.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that all certs are useless and those that have them are failures at what they do?
I will partly agree, a cert just proves you could pass a test, but I would not make the bold statement saying that everyone who puts them on their resume is an imbecile.

Ask Bret Hart

[Anonymous Coward]

;-)

for a real class act

[rubycodez]

The really classy HR and Recruiter turds put down requirements for years of experience greater than the time the technology has been in existence. For developers, 16 years J2EE required! 10 years .NET a must! 8+ years Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployment!

Bonus points for confounding distribution release numbers and internal software version numbers, or assuming only RedHat distributes GNU/Linux.

Re:for a real class act

[kgo]

I'm hunting right now. The best case of this by far is:

Visual Studio .NET 2008 - 5 years experience

(1) DO THE MATH! (At least when people were asking for ten years of web development experience in 1995, the web wasn't called WWW-90)

(2) WHAT THE HELL IS VISUAL STUDIO EXPERIENCE?

Re:for a real class act

[Godai]

Sometimes you get the reverse as well. A buddy of mine was one of the people behind Qualcomm's Brew and they put him in charge of co-op hiring. He was very entertained when -- 3 months after Brew was released -- he got a resumé submitted to him that indicated the student had "2 years experience with Brew". I remember he was very excited to meet that fellow, and was looking forward to quizzing him on his 'deep Brew experience'.

And, of course, sometimes there are other mistakes in the requirements. I got a co-op job once because I was only person interviewed who asked about one of the job requirements. "I'm quite familiar with the WIN32 API," I said, "But what is the WIN31 API? Do you mean Windows 3.1?" (Back then, this was actually relevant).

Re:for a real class act

[Anonymous Coward]

The really classy HR and Recruiter turds put down requirements for years of experience greater than the time the technology has been in existence....

I have actually seen this regarding AS/400 developers.
I wondered if they were trying to recruit from IBM's R&D department.

They wanted 5+ years experience on a platform that was public for only 2.

Re:for a real class act

[elrous0]

As someone who has been coding Java for over 20 years now, I resent your implication that experience doesn't count.

Re:for a real class act

[RiotNrrd]

I once asked someone about this and how to get around it. Their answer was to take the number of years required in the technology, add 2 and let that be your "years of experience". This will get you past HR and (hopefully) in front of a hiring manager. If the manager points out that your 8 years of Ruby on Rails experience seems unlikely, tell him what you did. If the manager doesn't laugh then you do NOT want to work for him/her.

Re:for a real class act

[masmullin]

It's when you drop acid, turn on some Jimi Hendrix and use visual studio for some coding.

Re:for a real class act

[plague3106]

Sure it wasn't a simple case of typing years when he meant months? I've been known to do stuff like that.

Re:for a real class act

[rthille]

So, which of the 3 are you?
http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/James_Gosling.htm

You need to bump that 20 years up a bit to be really wrong...

Re:for a real class act

[warGod3]

Or even better: the ones that "prefer" a PhD in computer science or electrical engineering, plus half a dozen certifications just to work a Level 1 help desk.

Yeah, I'm going to get a PhD so I can tell a user "Um, yeah, did you try plugging in the flux capacitor before you turned on the computer? You didn't! Run for your life, it's going to blow!"

Re:for a real class act

[The MAZZTer]

I'm sure he could find a job here:

When I was a college senior in 1988, I was flipping through the Boston Globe want ads. On one page was a job posting for a programmer with "a minimum of five years of Macintosh programming experience." I sometimes wonder if they found a qualified candidate. The Mac had only been on the market since 1984.

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_misc.shtml

Re:for a real class act

[anarche]

Isn't that how they made Avatar??

Re:for a real class act

[mgblst]

THe funny thing is, 2008 is not that much different to 2005, so if you have done 2005, you have experience with 2008. Oh, it might take you an hour or two to learn of the new features.

Just demand pretty much everything in your job ad:

[Ihlosi]

Knowledge of 6+ OSes and at least 15 programming languages, developer experience in everything from industrial controls to web apps, etc. Hire the applicant who looks like he's fresh out of college. There's your bad programmer.

Resume in Word

[Selfbain]

Personally I love it when they ask for this. Nothing pleases me more than writing a resume whose formatting seems to change based on what version of Office you're using...

Re:Resume in Word

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Personally I love it when they ask for this. Nothing pleases me more than writing a resume whose formatting seems to change based on what version of Office you're using...

I think you should probably change your default printer. Word files should not change formatting due to what versions. HOWEVER, the minimum margins are determined based on your default printer. If you are like me and have a wide range of printing devices, (or did) then you need to be careful that you have wider margins before you start typing.

Example:
1) I have the drivers for a Phaser 7500 printer which can print up to 12.6 by 47.25 inches. I can set my margins to 0" in Word. I create my document but don't change the margin settings.
2) I email the finished document to Joe HR. He has a HP Deskjet D1660 connected to his computer and has that driver as default (listed as 17.01 by 7.8 inches). As soon as he opens the document Word realizes that the document cannot fit and will adjust it to fit the new minimum margins (plus any padding settings added). This results in a smooshed resume.

If you just ensure you have a super crappy printer set as default before you start formatting your documents, you will avoid 9 out of 10 problems.

Word is also far from the only program that gets such information from your default printer. Pretty much any printing, design or layout software does too.

Re:Resume in Word

[jellomizer]

I think you may be over formatting your Resume.

When they ask for a Word.Doc file it is saying that it will be opened in word. And if you have hundred resumes and your resume is not on the sort by type list it just may not get opened. Or if it has a different icon it wont get clicked.

Re:Resume in Word

[elnyka]

Personally I love it when they ask for this. Nothing pleases me more than writing a resume whose formatting seems to change based on what version of Office you're using...

Uhhh, welcome to the 90's? I haven't seen such incompatibilities since 1998-2000. A person has to suck tremendously to create a resume that changes style from version to version. Not that Word is the right tool, but it is so widespread and so common in usage, anyone claiming to work in tech short of being a hermit working on an underground lab running a copy of Slackware Linux downloaded (probably via CompuServe) back in 95, should be able to create a resume that has zero to very little variability from one system to the next.

How much can a techie suck at simple word processing that he/she is unable to create a stable, professional resume in Word? I mean, seriously?

Nobody, and I mean, nobody worth counting uses anything older than MS Office 2000. Sorry dude, that argument makes no sense. There are many reasons for bashing MS Office (actually not that many for Office 2000, but lots for Office 2007). This one ain't one.

Re:Resume in Word

[Culture20]

Programmer meticulously creates a resume in OpenOffice, prints to PDF, send to HR, who send it back demanding a Word Document (so that they can mark on it via sharepoint with the hiring manager). Programmer converts the .ODT to a .DOC, sends to HR. HR tells the Manager: don't bother; this guy can't even format a Word document.

Re:Resume in Word

[Anonymous Coward]

Just last year I was tearing my hair when Word 2003 kept changing the layout whenever I tried to print an important document as PDF. Wouldn't it be wonderful if such issues simply did not occur?

Re:Resume in Word

[elnyka]

Just last year I was tearing my hair when Word 2003 kept changing the layout whenever I tried to print an important document as PDF. Wouldn't it be wonderful if such issues simply did not occur?

It sucks that it happens, and it would be nice if it didn't. But it does. One's miles varies from case to case, but for me, I have never had a problem printing complex documents (be it from Word, LyX or Google Docs) to PDF using a PDF print driver.

At work, I simply print the bloody doc on paper, then scan it on a PDF scanner. Voila, works all the time. Print it on a medium that you know won't change styles and then scan it into a PDF.

It does suck to have those problems, but we just simply work around them.

Is this joke from the 20th century?

[the_raptor]

Requiring resumes to be in the proprietary and platform-specific Word .doc format, instead of .pdf, .html, or .txt formats, is a nifty little test early on in the hiring process.

I can't remember when I last worried about .doc compatibility. It has been about five years since I had a real problem with converting basic .doc documents in OpenOffice, and when making them myself I can't recall a serious problem in even longer. I have never seen "must be in .docx format" (which can be a problem) and 99% of HR drones wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. HTML and (potentially) PDF* are just security risks.

This guy is either using a very dated joke or is a massive zealot.

* Not to mention you need a non-Adobe client to get a good experience with PDF.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm not a programmer per se, but am a statistician, and write a fair amount of code. I've applied and worked at places that required a .doc CV/resume. I do almost everything in LaTeX, and if you require the .doc CV, I've found that Word has permeated the very fabric of the place, and I won't be happy at all working there. I will never work in a place like that again. It is a fairly decent litmus test regarding the software culture of the place. The question remains as to whether I'm a 'good' worker and companies who require .doc CVs are missing out on people like me.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[Anonymous Coward]

And .doc isn't a security risk?

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[Altus]

I use open office for writing my resume (though I vastly prefer distributing it in PDF). I found that the layout ended up slightly different when I opened it in word on my girlfriends laptop. It lost some of the font size information that applied only to white space.

I had a .doc copy that I fixed up on her laptop and would use that when asked for a .doc resume but what a pain in the ass that was. If I hadn't had a computer with office on it I never would have known that the spacing was coming out wrong.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[drijen]

You can't convert Tex to .doc. Consider yourself told, OP.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[gangien]

umm what? I've worked in 2 places that required resume doc submissions, neither did i have to use word much(occasional doc in word was about it). I think you're jumping to conclusions.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[jd2112]

Your resume is scanned by software for keywords deemed to be relevant for the job (e.g. Windows, Java, AIX, ad nauseum). That software usually is configured to accept files in .doc format. (I would imagine that this software accepts other formats but that would be confusing to HR types... Besides any deviation from their instructions is reason to disqualify you.) Only after it has passed the relevant keyword tests is it viewed by human eyes where it is then filtered by other impossible criteria (at least 5 years experience with Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2008 R2. Must have MCSE in for Windows 2008.) Only then will HR contact you for an interview.

Re:Is this joke from the 20th century?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well of course I am, I'm a statistician :). It might just correlate with my line of work. But in my experience, "we only accept word for resumes" has meant SAS ODS output to Word was the standard, vs. R output to LaTeX.

You want bad programmers?

[damn_registrars]

You have definitely come to the right place!

Re:You want bad programmers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you insinuating that most slash dot readers are bad programmers, personally I find programmer to be some what demeaning programming is spaghetti code, software developer or software engineer if you have an engineering degree, is is proper design, code reuse and proper architectural implementation. I agree interviews especially HR are half BS bunch of key words, barely understand that if some one is a good OO developer they will be able to pic up on another language, with the current economic mess I consider my self a decent developer and in financial mess. There are quite talented developers with out work right now, very few but they are out there just because you went of on your own developed projects that failed due to lack of funding does not make you a bad developer and now your out in the cold and people can assume your bad because either you do not have certs, or you are in such need of work. A few great developers that I know also have a problem selling them selves, they may be more efficient, produce bug free code, get paid less but because they can not market them selves like Gods, they end up with less pay and remedial jobs.

Re:You want bad programmers?

[NoSleepDemon]

Your wall of text appears to have bricks missing, and the cement is crumbling

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[compro01]

Read closer. He means anything that is "$COMPANY certified" e.g. MCSE, CNA, etc.

Simple

[MightyMartian]

Interviewer: "Do you code exclusively in PHP?"

Answer: "Yup! Been using it ever since I gave up VB6."

Interviewer: "You're hired!"

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

One day we were hired to work in this ASP project.

Despite the fact that we couldn't manage to do dynamic includes (bye bye MVC), we were shocked when we learned that VBSCRIPT doesn't handle short circuit evaluation.

If you want a bad programmer, ask for someone who has exclusive experience wiht ASP / Visual Basic. These languages tend to teach the programmers the wrong way to do things.

Subtly different from how to scare aware good ones

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar to the acronyms, but not scaring away mediocre developers, is playing conceptual buzzword bingo. By this I mean buzzwords relating to ideas that can actually serve useful purpose in our work, but are more often warning flags of people with a fairly trendy and superficial understanding of software design. For instance, if I see a job listing that heavy in its enthusiasm for design patterns and extreme programming, that's a major warning flag to me. They may well be top-flight, but too often are essentially hipsters who haven't done their homework -- i.e., all the latest terms, but little of the math and algorithms the underpins everything we do.

Another red flag is rote memorization questions. If you're going to ask me what the signature is for a particular method in a particular API, I'm going to be looking at every other question you ask with a lot of scrutiny because odds are that you're terrible at hiring and have put together a crap team. One of my friends told me how he, a solid engineer and project manager, had to sit through an interview being asked the difference between String and StringBuffer. If you don't understand how degrading this is for an engineer with a grad school education and 20 years experience, please realize that you're embarrassing yourself in your current profession and humiliating the candidates you're meeting. You should have the capability of determining whether a candidate knows this kind of stuff without actually making them redo quizzes from first semester CS 101.
 
The best team I've worked on in any type of job was put together by a guy who asked me no direct questions about APIs, rote from the Gang of Four, or what a linked list was, but just a few things about projects I'd done. Of course, it takes talent and skill to be able to do that.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[Anonymous Coward]

While having certifications doesn't guarantee expertise in a technology, it sure as hell doesn't preclude it or hamper a broad range of knowledge in and of itself.

The only true indication of quality (or lack thereof) is actual work experience, thought processes, and inter-personal skills. The only reason to mention certifications is for clearing HR checklists and a potential bump in salary.

Thanks

[bjk002]

You saved me the trouble of posting this response. Throw some mods at this fella folks!

Re:Thanks

[tomhudson]

Add me to it.

Simple test: Ask me what 3 questions *I* would ask if I were looking to hire someone, and what my answers would be. Then see how many of them *you* would have gotten right. And wonder why not *one* of those 3 questions had anything directly to do with writing code ...

Re:Thanks

[electrosoccertux]

I'm confused, what?

Re:Thanks

[tomhudson]

Exactly!

Re:Call Bill

[dwiget001]

Bill? Is that you?

Wanted!

[Quiet_Desperation]

Immediate need for programmer with 10 years experience developing Objective C 2.0 for the iPad. Experience with developing for Intel i9 based Mac Pros is a major plus!

Re:Wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

You nailed it. I've seen this a lot. Just impossible odds those are, and that's what many are asking. What a load of crap.

In my experience, a coder that started out on the C64 and evolved from there always delivers. They do their job for fun. That's who I'd want to hire, not some idiot programming because it seemed like a good career choice at the time.

Re:Wanted!

[Ukab the Great]

Pre-iphone, putting words such as "Cocoa" and "Objective-C" on your resume caused HR to expedite it to a trash can. "Your last work experience was this 'Cocoa' thing? Where did you work, Starbucks?" It was really hard to be a career Objective-C developer.

I know your post was meant to be funny, but that HR departments acknowledge the existence of Objective-C is a sign of progress.

Re:Wanted!

[ChefInnocent]

HR departments tend to not know anything other than what the department manager hands them. The department manager asking for 10 years experience probably read about Objective-C on ZDNet (or worse Forbes) and thought he should get on the band wagon. HR, however, will likely trash resumes containing "Cocoa" as it doesn't match the words handed to them by the department manager.

Re:Wanted!

[JamesP]

No! you develop for the Iphone using Microsoft Visual Objective Java or something...

I have 10 years experience on that, btw!

Re:Wanted!

[jc42]

Immediate need for programmer with 10 years experience developing Objective C 2.0 for the iPad.

Actually, this sort of impossible requirement isn't always due to simple stupidity. I've seen cases where it was done knowingly. The goal was to have an excuse to reject every application from knowledgeable programmers. If they claimed the "required" experience, the HR people knew they were lying, and trashed their resume.

The actual goal was to be able to say "See, I told you there'd be no qualified applicants. So we now have grounds to hire that H1B guy we like." Or, in other cases, they had grounds to hire entry-level applicants and train them. This can happen when upper management refuses to pay for training your people on new stuff, and just wants you to hire new people who've already been trained by others. Forcing people to change employers to get training is one of the common disfunctionalities in current business practice.

OTOH, such requirements usually are just due to stupidity and ignorance. Lots of companies have a standard policy of requiring N years relevant experience, and upper management can't be bothered to make exceptions for new technology.

Re:Wanted!

[anarche]

What if this idiot worked extremely hard at Uni, getting good grades and a decent education, is now trolling slashdot before launching back into his own little android project.

Seriously, people later in life are allowed to change careers, and can make decent [insert new position here].

Re:Wanted!

[blackdropbear]

Obviously I'm out - I started on trash 80 model 2's.

Ask Slashdot?

[RemoWilliams84]

Ummm... post a programming question in the Ask Slashdot section?
(Ducks)

Re:Call Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Theo might.

Re:Call Bill

[X0563511]

You only ever hear the fanboys. The real supporters are too busy doing things that matter.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[oatworm]

The problem isn't about whether it's hard or not for those that don't wish to use proprietary software to open Word docs. The problem is that Word docs are not platform neutral - the font that you used on your resume' might not line up with the fonts that I have installed on my system and vice-versa. Plus, the version you're using might not be the same as the version I'm using and might get rendered differently if you use any sort of fancy-ish formatting (tables, columns, sections, etc.). This would be an issue whether the person on the other end wanted a Word doc, an ODF file, or any other non-trivial word processing document. Realistically, if you want to submit your resume' and have it look as good as possible, you want to know that the person on the other end will be able to see the same thing that you see when you created it; if they're making that functionally impossible by requiring it in a non-print safe non-vendor neutral format, it shows they don't understand such issues, which hints strongly at how well they pay attention to such issues with the rest of their work.

Put another way, imagine working for an employer whose corporate culture can be summed up as "Works for me", then imagine how much fun it would be to fix the consequences of such an ethos when a major customer or the CEO finds something is broken.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[Anonymous Coward]

Read closer. He means anything that is "$COMPANY certified" e.g. MCSE, CNA, etc.

It's still an utterly idiotic statement. Many companies require those certs for certain pay grades and/or positions.

The certs don't indicate level of proficiency in the tech they cover (or the level of intelligence or competency of those that list them on their resume) one way or another. If they reflect a narrow point of view, it's only that of the companies that require them.

They are easy to find.

[XB-70]

Put out a government tender for software development.

Re:Call Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Not full certainly, but they have their share. Have you ever tried to work with the DirectShow API?

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[ClosedSource]

"The circular nature of such training guarantees a worker who's view is designed to be narrow."

Sure, because it's a well-known fact that once you pass a certification test you're not allowed to learn anything else.

Seriously, if you are looking for someone to be a Admin for your RedHat installations, you would prefer the candidate that doesn't have a RedHat certification?

Ask me about my 500 mile commute

[wsanders]

A SURE sign is when you get calls from recruiters about jobs that are 500-plus miles away:

1) The job is so shitty that we have asked every recruiter on the planet to try to fill it.

2) Or else there are 50 openings on a project that is so utterly f-ed up that no competent person would want to work on it, and it will take 50 incompetents to just keep it from imploding under its own mass.

3) Or recruiter is geographically clueless. My resume clearly states that I will not accept any jobs outside of bicycle commuting distance, yet recruiters have still called me and asked me if Los Angeles or West Virginia were within daily commuting distance of the SF Bay Area. (Glad the job wasn't in EAST Virginia!)

Re:Ask me about my 500 mile commute

[Grishnakh]

2) Or else there are 50 openings on a project that is so utterly f-ed up that no competent person would want to work on it, and it will take 50 incompetents to just keep it from imploding under its own mass.

This sounds like the software-defined radio project that General Dynamics has been hiring for for the past 5+ years here in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Re:Ask me about my 500 mile commute

[elrous0]

My resume clearly states that I will not accept any jobs outside of bicycle commuting distance

Get a haircut, hippie!

Re:Ask me about my 500 mile commute

[rubycodez]

I like the ones that call or email about job that pays half what I make now, is 700 miles away, and employer will not cover relocation nor any other expenses. Even better is all that for 3 or 4 month "opportunity". Yes, could you please write the description of that glorious opportunity onto some heavy weight paper, fold into origami with all sharp edges, and jam it two feet up into your rectum?"

Rename .txt to .doc

[wsanders]

If your recruiter asks for a Word doc and you are actually interested, just rename a *.txt file to *.doc.

I actually just have a hard link on my web site, my resume.txt is the same file as my resume.doc.

Re:Rename .txt to .doc

[AlexBirch]

Then you're losing formating... it's like speaking monotonously at a job interview.

HERE IR;

[myspace-cn]

Pirate's Sub (A.pee.Aye).hWin pi$\`.$\`S
Pirate's Const FARTWIND \`(hit.fuc), 99 .my.sac.dam2 = -2 + "True" '

dim my.shit.fuck.dame();
set pis(my.shit.fuck.damn"BlacTerrorFLAGS=1) ` lol funny
Else
2 = True

GoSub PresidentWinningElection
GoSub PresidentHackingElection
GoSub PresidentSwearingIn
End
End
wEND
End
End

Careful!

[gillbates]

Some people here could fill that job!

1. DOS
2. Windows
3. Linux
4. MVS
5. HP-UX
6. Solaris

And....

1. Java
2. JavaScript
3. HTML
4. XML
5. C++
6. C
7. Tcl
8. Natural
9. Cobol (Gah, my eyes!)
10. JCL
11. Perl
12. Lisp
13. Visual Basic
14. x86 Assembly
15. ARM Assembly
16. VHDL

Okay, I have to write this to get past the lameness filter. But listing too many languages is likely to get you a very experienced engineer, not a bad programmer.

Re:Careful!

[Anonymous Coward]

OS: DOS, Windows 9x, Windows 2k+, Linux, OS X, Solaris
Languages: C, C++, Objective-C, Haskell, Fortran, Java, C#, VB.NET, VBA, Python, Ruby, PHP, ASP.NET, JavaScript, Ladder Logic, BASIC, AppleScript

Industrial Controls: See Ladder Logic
Web Apps: ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby on Rails...

And now to wait for somebody else to double that list.

Re:Careful!

[elrous0]

It's also been my experience that this will get you a lot of liars too. But that's easy enough to screen out at the first interview if the supervisor or senior programmer doing the interviewing actually knows anything about the languages himself. And if he doesn't, you probably shouldn't be listing them on the requirements in the first place (since your company obviously doesn't actually use them).

Re:Careful!

[Magic5Ball]

As neither an engineer nor a programmer:

DOS, Windows, Linux, OS X, AIX, OS/2, BeOS

Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, C++, C, Tcl, CSS, Visual C++ (never again), Postscript, Pascal, Perl, sh, Visual Basic, PHP, SmallTalk, SQL, REXX, WSH, AppleScript, regular expressions /enabled 11x growth in client base, 2x increase in customer satisfaction, 0.5x deployment and support costs as ex-product manager for a multinational software/hardware concern, but I wouldn't necessarily hire myself as a programmer

Re:Careful!

[julesh]

Let's see. Don't think I quite match up.

Done professional dev work under DOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS/X. That's only 5, but I've also been paid to do tech support on CP/M 86 (Amstrad PCW FTW!) if that helps?

Language and technology-wise, I've done pro worked in QuickBASIC, C, MS-DOS Batch (hey, if you can count JCL this counts too!), Perl, C++, Javascript, PHP, Java, ColdFusion, ActionScript (Flash 4 and onwards), Classic ASP's variant of Visual BASIC, VBA, C#, x86 assembly, CMU Common LISP, Scheme. There we go, 16.

Re:Careful!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those rare ones you can filter out of the stream ;)

Re:Careful!

[The MAZZTer]

That's why he said they have to look like they just graduated from college.

Re:Careful!

[mooingyak]

Random thought your post made me think of:

I once responded to a job posting that was looking for people who knew AWK. When I asked about it, the guy smiled and told me that while they have a couple of minor systems that are written in AWK, they want people who know their way around in UNIX. When he posts that he wants UNIX people, he gets resumes with people who can do ls, rm, and mv, and sometimes cat. When he posts that he wants AWK people, they almost universally know for more about UNIX than that.

Re:Careful!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Just hire the guy who claims HTML is a programming language!

Re:Subtly different from how to scare aware good o

[ClosedSource]

If your friend has 20 years of experience they were probably just looking for a way to eliminate him. Hiring practices have never been objective, it's just that today the song-and-dance has better production values.

Hey

[SnarfQuest]

Why are you looking at me?

Easy...

[warGod3]

Let HR write the job requirements, conduct the interviews and hire, all without the input of ANYONE that knows how to do more with a computer, than just turn it on.

Re:Subtly different from how to scare aware good o

[Anonymous Coward]

This is kinda sad, but I got hired at my current position because I got asked one of those ridiculous questions, and was the only candidate to get it right. The question was, "What is a Cartesian product?". I'm sure that wasn't the only reason (I had the resume and work experience necessary), but that's what made me stand out over the others. We tend to think that these stupid questions don't help anything, but we might be wrong.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[elnyka]

To find a bad programmer (or bad anything actually) hire anyone whose resume/CV features "certified" or "certification" by a corporation that sells the product covered by the certificate (e.g.: "microsoft certified"). The circular nature of such training guarantees a worker who's view is designed to be narrow.

Woa, woa, woa, wait there. Are you saying that you can get any microsoft certification just by paying, without any type of evaluation at all?

Treat similar things differently

[Jiro]

For instance, requiring that prospective hires know how to use Linux, Unix, and Solaris. Or require knowledge of Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. An alternative is to require just one such thing with the implication that you'll throw out all the others, so your job posting says Visual Studio 2005, leaving the guys who used 2008 wondering if their resumes are going to be thrown out.

Another is to be overly specific. We don't just want SQL, we want this brand of SQL from this company and this year. Yeah, they're not all exactly the same, but still. You can do this for non-language requirements too. "Experience with data driven applications involving medium-sized distributed computer systems which process customer orders in Swiss French in the used wristwatch industry. Swiss German not acceptable."

Also, I could never figure out why companies who want C++ and not C always say "C/C++".

Re:Treat similar things differently

[mgblst]

Must be able to developer in Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP sp1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Xp SP3, and Windows XP Sp4.

Re:Treat similar things differently

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because the average C++ programmer thinks that they can program in C, even if they never have.

Just look for an MSCE

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had excellent results finding poor coders by hiring ones that have MSCE listed on their resume.

Re:Just look for an MSCE

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same vein, you can include anyone who lists CNCA, MSCD, or a BcS in Computer Science.

Re:Call Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who had to deploy an SMO application that was compatible with both SQL 2008 & SQL 2005 would say that.

I have come to the conclusion that Microsoft invented SMO for Americans With Disabilities Act compliance. The SMO library was written by retards.

Those are writings on the wall...

[elnyka]

Immediate need for programmer with 10 years experience developing Objective C 2.0 for the iPad. Experience with developing for Intel i9 based Mac Pros is a major plus!

I've seen that sh*t too. Back in 1995 I was applying for a VB 3.0 job and got rejected because I didn't have 7 years of experience (VB 3.0 was less than two years old, and the whole VB line wasn't 7 years old at all.)

Move the clock forwards to 1998, same deal, got rejected at two applications: one for not having 7 years of experience in Java and another one for not having 8 years of experience with C++ STL. 1998 people!!!. And then in 2001, same again, but this time it was 10 years of Java experience. How the hell can HR screw up like that is beyond me. I was very desperate to get a job on those years, leaving me very bitter against HR and recruiters. Now I laugh.

If someone tells me that they are looking someone with 7 years in JavaFX, I'll just laugh, looking at the whole thing as a sign of God to avoid working with retards.

Re:Those are writings on the wall...

[e2d2]

It's actually a great thing that they do that. It helps you weed out potential "bad jobs". As you probably know given your experience, you need to interview the company just as they interview you to make sure you fit. If you find an idiotic hiring process it's probably a much deeper problem as a whole and best to move on.

Re:Those are writings on the wall...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just realized I have been writing Objective-C code since 1989 - 21 years. (Yeah, I started with NeXTSTEP 0.8). Don't have an iPad, 'tho.

Re:Those are writings on the wall...

[sjames]

When not desperate, pass those by. If desperate, lie. Why not, clearly they are lying about their requirements and the quality of their organization, so you might as well return the favor.

You might even discover a good job somewhere with clueless HR people who re-wrote the actual requirements to look like the other ads.

Re:Those are writings on the wall...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, maybe put a zero on the end of everything?
Say you are 25yo, have been coding with PHP say 5 years, say you got 50 years of experience :D Works the other way around ;P

Hire them from my last employer

[PPH]

When I was getting ready to leave, they brought in a "s/w engineer" from out IT department to take over my admin/maintenance duties. I was an engineer who spent about 10% of my time overseeing our (custom) document management and distribution system. So they figured a real IT guy with the proper languages (Perl, among others) on his resume should be simple to find. On his first day, I gave him our system documentation and opened up a terminal to show him an example of our CGI programs. After a few minutes of concentrated staring at the code, he turned to me and asked, "What language is this?" The first line said "#! /usr/bin/perl", which he was staring at.

But that wasn't the worst example. While I was still on that job, a guy from another group stopped by my desk and struck up a conversation about programming. Pretty soon, he showed me an example of a Fortran routine we was trying to get running. The code snippet he had was something another engineer had chicken-scratched on a piece of paper. In it, there was a call to a subroutine (something like "Plot(...)", but my memory is vague). The engineer had actually written the function as "Plot(...)", with the three dots and all. Of course, I understood this notation to mean "Some parameters go here. RTFM and figure it out". But when we logged onto the IT guy's account to look at the source, that's exactly what he had entered: "Plot(...)". On the positive side, he did actually have the same number of dots that the engineer had written on his notes.

This was one (of many) incidents that led to my leaving that circus.

Re:Easy...

[natehoy]

Listen, buddy, I don't know how you did it, but my company's lawyers will be contacting you shortly.

There is no way in hell you should have gotten a copy of our hiring procedure through any legitimate means, but if you did you had to have signed the NDA that came with it.

Re:Call Bill

[jcr]

Microsoft full of bad programmers?

I'd say that judging by the Microsoft engineers i've met (who were nearly all from the Mac Business Unit), they really don't have a shortage of coding talent over there. What they have is a mind-boggling surplus of bad management, starting with Ballmer.

-jcr

Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[SmallFurryCreature]

I know how to find one bad programmer at least. Hire the guy who wrote that article.

Yes he does have a point, but he goes overboard and on several point shows a complete lack of being able to work within the system. No job environment is perfect.

1. List a String of Acronyms for Technologies

This is indeed bad, but you also need to be clear about what you want and the clearest way to list what technologies are needed for the job is to make a list. The list ain't bad, a long unfocused list is bad. If a job doesn't have a short list of what is required then I know they don't have a fucking clue what they are looking for. Only apply if you wish to hold their hand on every decision making process, which will turn out to have a lot of similarity with a random number generator.

2. Put an Arbitrary Number Next to Each Skill

Yup can be pretty bad but how else do you attempt to make it clear you need someone with experience with HTML, not just someone who has seen the acronym once? Personally I would use the experience level you must have for the job rather then years. Because years don't mean anything. I have used databases for 20 years now, but am not a DBA'er (I once talked to a girl after all).

3. Say Nothing Positive About the Position

Yeah, I do notice that. The old "what we offer" seems to have gone missing in action. But on the other hand, am I the only one who hates the boiler-plate "fresh and young company with an informal attitude"? Only put things here if they are relevant and true.

4. Use Euphemisms for the Negative Aspects of the Job

Oh boy. Don't forget the "flexible" one. Means: We are going to screw you every which way but whine like a girl if you ask for a single thing back. Basically, jobs are like girls. Nobody who doesn't have a multiple personality could ever hope to succeed.

5. Require Resume to be in Word doc Format

I like this one, good way to avoid MS shops. ALWAYS look for the desktops being used. All MS? Then run. Fast.

I am actually working on a little site myself that will advise people on how to buy a website. How do you handle the process? How do you determine your true requirements so you don't get hussled? What can you do to avoid becoming the dreaded "scope creep" client and the huge costs that come with it?

What the article/site will mostly focus on is trying to educate customers about the product they are buying and a LOT of companies hiring programmers don't have a clue about programmers or the job they are supposed to do. And this is odd, because if you are going to buy a car, you bring that friend who knows everything about cars. But anything to do with IT and those Luddites from HR can surely handle it. Would you let the guy who doesn't drive handle purchasing the company cars?

So, here is my own list of how to find a GOOD programmer.

1. Determine what it is you need. This is NOT a case of just listing every tech that ever been used in the company. If you need a web-developer it MIGHT sound reasonable to list everything from the server to image manipulation but really, what human can truly be an expert on all of them? Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Yes, it can be handy for your frontend guru to handle his own images, but should he also know how to handle obscure database crashes? If the job requirement becomes to wide, then you either need to split up the job, use external expert services or maybe accept that what you need is a couple of juniors who are still looking what area to go for rather then a specialist in a certain area.
2. Determine what kind of company you really are. Not every company is young and dynamic. Sure, you are advertising your company but that doesn't mean you have to sell it like Axe. Be realistic unless you want to attract the kind of person who falls for commercials. If you are a MS shop were everything is MS, don't try to sell yourself as an anything goes company, because your new hiree will run when he has to file a request in triplicate to h

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yup can be pretty bad but how else do you attempt to make it clear you need someone with experience with HTML, not just someone who has seen the acronym once?" How about "Deep/Extensive/Senior Level HTML experience" or "Must have written HTML every day for 2+ years" or "Must know HTML well". Also "Technical skills will be tested during interview process"

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[warGod3]

I would only add one thing to that list:

Prepare to leave the position open. It would be more beneficial to hire the one "right" good programmer, than go through a dozen bad ones that screw things up along the way.

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[Grishnakh]

Yes he does have a point, but he goes overboard

That's a key component of any satire. If you don't go overboard, then it's not very funny. You're supposed to laugh at the excessiveness, but still understand the author's point.

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[Grishnakh]

I like this one, good way to avoid MS shops. ALWAYS look for the desktops being used. All MS? Then run. Fast.

I have to disagree about this one. Maybe I'm in the wrong country or something, but I've never seen a company that didn't have MS desktops, no matter what kind of work they were doing. Of course, most of my experience has been at larger companies.

Anyway, while my work is mostly Linux kernel device driver debug and development, and in the past has been other Unix/Linux-based development, I've always had an MS desktop. Most large companies unfortunately use MS Outlook for email and scheduling (I guess it could be worse, they could use Lotus Notes), and also use MS Office for all office docs. Obviously, this requires an MS desktop. Generally, the setup is that you either get two computers, one Windows and one Linux/Unix, or there's a shared Linux server that you log into remotely with VNC or NX. You might also run Linux in a VM. Currently, I'm doing the latter two.

Also, don't forget that in most companies, especially larger ones, engineering and software development are only part of what they do. They have other departments (HR, sales, finance, etc.), and of course they all use MS too. My current company has a small mechanical engineering group, for designing cases and such, and of course they have to use MS too, since Pro/E is a Windows-only app to my knowledge, just like most other engineering tools.

Personally, I've never heard of any substantial company that didn't require its engineers/developers to use an MS desktop, except perhaps Red Hat.

Yeah, it sucks, but I'm not going to go without a job just because every company I've ever interviewed with uses Windows desktops. As long as I don't have to administer it myself, and my usage is mainly limited to Lookout/Office (plus VNC/NX), I'll put up with it. But if it develops a major problem or gets a virus or something, there better be IT people to take care of it, because I'm not fixing it.

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[anarche]

Yeah, but I think his point is to check if all the systems are windows. ie no *nix of any kind...

Having said that most of the interviews I've been to in the last three weeks are ".net developer" jobs.

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[Grishnakh]

That kind of thing should be obvious from the job requisition. If they're looking for a .NET developer, aren't they going to say so? If you're a Unix developer, then you shouldn't even be looking at those jobs, much less interviewing for them.

Maybe I'm missing something; I'm an embedded Linux programmer, so when I look for a new job, I make sure the job listing clearly says that's what they're looking for. If they're looking for .NET, or WinMo, or Green Hills (lots of that crap here in Phoenix), or whatever, I don't bother applying. I also run the other way if the listing says anything about a security clearance (tends to go with the Green Hills stuff, but there's a lot of Linux jobs in defense too). Not that I'd have a problem getting one, but the work environment is ridiculous, according to my former co-workers who have succumbed and gone to work at a major defense contractor.

Re:Got a point, but he is to heavy handed

[Vellmont]

I guess I don't understand your perspective in the least. You go through each of his points as if to be critical and use a critical tone, but for each one you wind up agreeing with him.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[lgw]

I always insist on Word format. I'm filtering out programmers who will refuse to follow simple, clear shop standards just because they personally disagree with them. You know, sometimes I don't care what your arguments are about whether we should drive on the right side of the road or the left - the important thing is that we all use the same standard!

Also, you'd be amazed how many places still OCR resumes and send the text around. Word's Times font is what all the OCR software (in this domain) expects, so you look better if you use that exact body font.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[oatworm]

Fair enough - there's definitely value in having clear shop standards, so I can certainly understand wanting to weed out those that are too inflexible in their own ways to work properly with a team. Personally, I keep my resume' in a variety of formats so I can "play along" anyway, so it's not a huge deal; that said, I'll have to remember to create a Times New Roman vanilla formatting version one for companies like yours.

This being Slashdot and all, though, I will note that binary Word docs are neither simple, clear, nor standard, even among versions of Word, much less non-MS products. I'll also note that allowing Word docs as your only standard opens the door to a ton of undesirable and unintended flexibility, such as using complex sectioning, versioning, and incompatible fonts, which might freeze up your OCR systems. Given what you've stated thus far, a far more simple and clear test of shop standard adherence would be just requiring plain-text resumes, which I've seen many places do quite successfully.

My beautiful resume

[chemicaldave]

5. Require Resume to be in Word doc Format Even worse is having to submit in a plaintext box. Almost as irritating is being allowed to submit a .pdf format resume only to find out it must be 150K in size.

Re:Just demand pretty much everything in your job

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowledge of 6+ OSes and at least 15 programming languages

But why is then that every fucking time a /. story is about programming there invariably is a post that's modded up to 5 that essentially says "good programmers should know many languages"? The idea being "the right tool for the right job", blah, blah, blah.

I DON'T know many programming languages. For example, when it comes to Web technologies I'm as knowledgeable as your grand-mother.

But I know C++. I fell in love with it and I've accumulated years of experience with it. I've read everything from all the experts, the books, the papers, the blogs. I've attended conferences from the same experts when I had the opportunity to. I've used the libraries that eventually made it to TR1. I'm so passionate about C++ that I couldn't wait and downloaded the early release of VS2k10 to try out features of the upcoming standards.

I eat C++ for breakfast like others do JavaScript or Ruby on Rails.

So, when I see this on a resume:

Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, C++, C, Tcl, CSS, Visual C++ (never again), Postscript, Pascal, Perl, sh, Visual Basic, PHP, SmallTalk, SQL, REXX, WSH, AppleScript

I can never help it but to think: "There's NO WAY IN FLAMING HELL you know C++ like I do." And, soon after that: "So, what does it say about the depth of the knowledge you have in all these other languages?"

But, according to the widely spread assumption that good programmers can do everything because they know all the "right tools for the right job", this guy's a winner.

So, what gives?

p.s. Sorry, /. user Magic5Ball. I don't hate you personally. Yours just turned out to be a perfect example. Maybe I'm the one who is wrong here.
p.p.s. Can somebody explain to me what the fuck is "Visual C++" supposed to be as a programming language? It's no the first time I see this.
p.p.p.s Never mind. I asked Wikipedia and sure enough, it just confirmed my suspicion that it's just the name of the tool chain that ships with Visual Studio for the Microsoft-centric C family of languages. But if you "never again" want to use Visual Studio, you're depriving yourself of the best IDE for C++ on Windows, no contest.

Re:Call Bill

[mcvos]

I have mod points but no idea how to mod this. It's part insightful, part flamebait.

Yes, Microsoft has tons of excellent programmers. Then again, good FOSS projects also have some really good programmers.

The real difference is: in FOSS projects, the programmers call the shots, instead of the managers. This can be both good and bad.

Seen in the wild

[Muad'Dave]

Actually seen in the wild from a "Senior Java Programmer (tm)":

if (myObject.equals(null)) {
    throw new Exception("Object is null");
}

Re:Seen in the wild

[julesh]

Actually seen in the wild from a "Senior Java Programmer (tm)":

if (myObject.equals(null)) {
        throw new Exception("Object is null");
}

You've got to admit, it does throw an exception if myObject is null...

Re:Seen in the wild

[wisnoskij]

That is the funnest code I have ever seen.

1/++ programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone else puts "C/C++" on their CV. I just divide out the common factor and write 1/++.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[e2d2]

I'm a certified MS developer (MCSD). I keep it around because it helps a company maintain a partnership with MS, which leads to discounts on licenses. Not that useless after all it turns out. I pay very little for MSDN licenses also. Personally I don't care if a interviewee is certified in anything or not. Other criteria is more important.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[mini me]

That does sound like a good way to find bad programmers. Programmers have no need for word processors; we have a multitude of programming and markup languages designed to make document creation simple. Who wants to fumble around with Word?

But more to the point, good programmers will typically not have a word processor installed. It is simply not a tool that a programmer ever needs to use. A quick Froogle search reveals that it would cost almost $200* for a good programmer to legitimately send a resume in Word format.

What would motivate a good programmer to spend $200 just to talk to you when there are plenty of other companies who would jump at the chance to hire said person?

* It is possible one could use OpenOffice, or similar, for free. But there are no guarantees that the output will be readable in Word. Again, not really worth the effort when there are plenty of other people looking for good programmers.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[mini me]

A good programmer will have spent that time learning and perfecting their craft instead of using that time to take a test. It is not that they make a person worse by having one, but it is a poor allocation of resources for someone looking to be the best that they can be.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[lgw]

If you're smart enough to recognize the problems inherent in Word, you're smart enough to preview your doc with WordPad and use only the two Microsoft ur-fonts (Arial headers over Times New Roman body). You can produce a very professional resume with just those two fonts (miserable as they may be), good use of white space, and moderate use of bullet lists. Man I'm tired of sans-serif resumes with tiny margins that are nothing but bullet points (usually for 8 pages, not that I ever read past page 2).

You're clueless.

[plopez]

If a programmer doesn't have long unkept hair, they have shaved their heads like skin heads and had their scalps tattooed. Nothing says incompetent programmer like someone in a suit and a tie.

Get a clue, PHB.

Put an Arbitrary Number Next to Each Skill

[Derekloffin]

All too true. I still remember seeing an ad for a programmer that asked for 5 years of Java experience... when Java was 3 and a bit years old. I suppose they might have been looking for some deep insider from Sun or something, but really...

An ad that states:

[plopez]

"Must be neatly attired and with good personal hygiene".

Enough said...

Ob. Dilbert

[DarthVain]

http://www.dilbert.com/2010-04-02/

If asked about how I would go about doing something, I would explain in enough detail that they would know that I know what I am talking about, but not enough so they can just tell someone else to do it.

Some do and will go to far. Usually in the written part or practical part, however I don't feel obligated to solve their problems until they hire me. The interview is just so they get an idea of who would be best to hire to solve their problems.

Typically your getting evaluated by managers anyway who won't have a clue, and perhaps one in-house expert, so going into too much detail isn't always critical.

If they want me to solve some trivial coding assignment to prove I actually know they stuff on my resume, I have no problem with that. If they give me an example of a problem they are currently having with their system, and give me real data structures to work with, I will tell them HOW I will do it, but I am not about to do unpaid work.

How HR screws it up

[plopez]

People have been posting how some of the job requirements get screwed up. In my mond I can see this conversation or email with HR happening in 1998:

Manager of software project: "We need someone with 10 years experience programming. Someone with Java experience".

HR writes up: "Must have 10 years Java programming experience".

HTH

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[lgw]

If your current company doesn't provide Word to everyone, I'd be a bit nervous about what kind of niche your were in to begin with. One point of the interview process is to screen for candidates who take the whole thing seriously and make an effort to prepare, but somehow I doubt that you're really ranting about spending $200 as part of a job hunt (and, of course, you only need WordPad, not Word). If you seriously feel that you have no place at the 99% of companies who mostly use Word to do business and could only feel comfortable at a company that would care about the stuff you're ranting about, then by all means self-select (and best of luck to you; competition for "open source jobs" is very fierce).

It's worth noting that "being really good at coding" is the key job skill only for the first several years of a software development career. Beyond that you need to be less focused, and good at design, collaboration, and understanding your customer and his world view. Being so trapped in your own micro-culture that you can't understand how normal people think will be a real handicap there.

Some experience, but not a number.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I don't disagree on any particular point, except maybe your use of "young".

However, asking for a specific number of years of experience is pure bullshit, and you can usually tell when they ask for ten years of experience with a technology which has existed for five years. What's important is not age or years, but experience.

You found me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I INVENTED Objective-C 2.0 ten years ago, but Apple refused to contribute my changes as required by the gcc and runtime licenses, so the whole project was hidden for years.

I DESIGNED the i9 based Mac Pros. We are just waiting fro volume shipments from Intel.

A couple more

[M. Baranczak]

- Don't just use endless lists of acronyms; use them in a way that makes it obvious that you have no clue what they mean (5+ years of API experience!)

- "Web 2.0". I don't think I need to elaborate.

- Don't say anything about your company. In fact, don't even offer any hint as to the identity of the company.

- If you do talk about yourself, make sure you use the blurb that was intended for clients and investors. You know, the one where you brag about how little you pay your workers.

You're a fraud!

[plopez]

JCL is not a programming language as there are no looping controls. And *no one* writes JCL (or if they do they are a really sick puppy). Only one JCL control sequence was ever written, everything since then has been people hacking that original script. Who wrote it seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

And yes, the inverted logic is.... well... "special".

Notice which ones arn't actually listening to you

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Because at least in my career the 2 worst coders I ever saw wouldn't listen to anybody else. (I mean I was giving them good advice but they just wouldn't listen.)

Re:Call Bill

[jc42]

...judging by the Microsoft engineers i've met (who were nearly all from the Mac Business Unit), they really don't have a shortage of coding talent over there. What they have is a mind-boggling surplus of bad management, starting with Ballmer.

That's something that MS doesn't have a patent on.

One of my favorite examples, that gets knowing looks from lots of good programmers: Some years back, I was hired to implement a specific standard (which one isn't important here, but you'd recognize the name). When I started, I was bemused to see written orders that explicitly included not implementing a critical part of the standard, because "it isn't needed in our system". So I did the sensible thing: I implemented the entire standard, but included a switch that disabled the part they didn't want. I was also a bit annoyed by the fact that they explicitly denied me the use of a downloadable compliance test package (which was even free).

After a while, the project was working well enough that they delivered the first release to several customers. Among the bug reports, every customer included the fact that my part didn't pass their compliance test (which was the one I'd been denied access to), and they explicitly noted the one part that didn't work at all, which was of course the part I'd been ordered not to implement. Every customer said they wouldn't accept the product until that part was working. I got a "top priority" request asking how quickly I could implement the missing feature. I flipped the switch in my test setup, thoroughly tested it, and reported a few days later that it was ready for delivery. My managers were duly impressed by how quickly I'd done it, and the customers all accepted it.

A few months later, they were setting up for the product's "2.0" project. I noted that my standard was included, and that they again explicitly required that I not implement that one part that they "didn't need".

I sent my resume around, and a few weeks later, told them that I wouldn't be working on release 2.0.

It's interesting how many of the good programmers that I know have stories very similar to this. And most of them don't work for Microsoft.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[zero_out]

Unfortunately, most people who are hiring have an HR department that screens resumes, which isn't the most technically savvy. As a result, their IT department gives them MS Office because it's the most familiar to the HR staff, and will result in the least helpdesk calls. Hiring managers are usually bogged down with work (ergo they are hiring). This leads to a situation where hiring managers have to rely on the HR department to screen candidates based on some keyword criteria, which means candidates need to use Word. Ideally, they would accept a PDF, because there are open source PDF writers out there for various platforms, and I know that it will be rendered exactly the same on their screen. That is, if I don't use some crazy fonts, but then I can just embed those into the PDF.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[zero_out]

No, he's saying MS makes Windows, and MS sells Windows certifications, which is cyclical. You still need to study for the certification, but the point is who makes the technology, and who sells the certifications for the technology. He's saying independent certification source is preferred.

Lord of the Flies

[Grishnakh]

That was the best line in the whole article. I think it also aptly describes many workplaces.

Easy.

[julesh]

Post a project on a "find an outsourcing developer" web site. These places are filled to the brim with bad developers who think the best way to get ahead is to undercut every other bad developer on the site. And customers who think that cheapest is obviously the best. (E.g. this project with some really clearly clueless bidders trying to get a relatively complex job without any obvious experience by offering to do it for almost no money.)

It's not India that is the problem

[thetoadwarrior]

It's easy to say Indians are a problem or any off-shore employee. I know I've had more than my fair share of grief from off-shore devs.

But one thing to keep in mind if your employer is tight then, despite wages being very cheap anyway in those countries, there is a very good chance they're paying Indians less than they should get in their home country as well.

I know for a fact the last off-shore devs I worked with were paid low wages for their country. The people that stayed in the office are often useless. Anyone that was good moved to a better company within their country or more often moved to the US, Canada, UK, etc. They're good and don't need to stay within their country making peanuts.

Companies also think they can sack a load of techies in their country and hire off-shore devs and some how non-techies will be able to communicate what needs to be done. Something they fail at with English speakers and something that is even worse with a language barrier.

India is no different from the US. Some devs are absolutely useless. Some are trying their best but dealing with some moron in another country who thinks he can do his job badly, leaving the Indian without enough info and support, and if the Indian fails it's because he's Indian and it's doesn't really matter if he fucks up because his wage is the equivalent of minimum-wage so it's cheap to re-do it.

No one hears about the good Indian devs because there is nothing to point and laugh at and any decent Indian probably won't work for some shitty off-shoring scheme.

The biggest reason I am against off-shoring isn't some Indian "stealing" my job but because it is so cheap that companies don't put in as much effort and the bar is lowered. Pay everyone the same exact wage and then let the best country win.

code in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you're hacking the judicial system.

Sad, but true...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny? It's true, sadly.

I was once one of the admins on a big MUD. I went through all the mobprogs (it used a somewhat modified version of the ROM mobprog patch). They were horrible. Dreadful. I finally understood why the MUD so often crashed with new areas until mobprogs were disabled. I once saw a death trigger that loaded three mobs, then issued the kill command three times. As the *dying mob* ... and no one seemed to know why this wouldn't work (hint: you want the *new* mobs to attack, you don't want the *dying* mob, which was already attacking, to start to attack someone three more times... it will cause a crash). Then I looked at our documentation. It was wrong. Half of it was untrue, written by a predecessor. Who wrote one of the largest collections of mobprogs in the game. Oogh.

I spent most of my tenure fixing mprogs. I don't think anyone before or since had ever been able to do building on the live port without crashing anything, but I did exactly that, many times over, due to careful testing and having a better understanding of how things *actually* worked.

Throw a rock...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you're bound to hit one.

Poach off Microsoft

[Cloud K]

???
Make a ridiculous profit

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[mini me]

Since I only broached this question in a roundabout way in my previous message, I will be more direct this time: What makes your place of employment worthy of a skilled developer jumping through all of those hoops you are imposing?

Yes, any developer worth his or her salt will have the skills and means to prepare a Word document. That is not the point. The point is that a good developer will already have several job offers coming their way and being courted by cool companies left and right. Why would someone with talent want to spend excessive amount of time to prepare their resume in a non-convinient way just to have a chance to talk with you?

I am going to assume that you work for Google or Apple. Developers most certainly will jump through any hoops necessary just for the chance to talk with those companies. They hold prestige for many developers and for them it would be an honour to work for such companies. Although, honestly, I cannot really see either company having your policy.

If you are Joe Sixpack Software, I am honestly curious about what you are doing that is so interesting that is attracting skilled developers despite your policy. I might be interested in investment opportunities, because you must be doing something really cool.

C++ generics

[Anonymous Coward]

You can write functions that use C++ generics in the signature without using C++ classes.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[fishexe]

... if they're making that functionally impossible by requiring it in a non-print safe non-vendor neutral format, it shows they don't understand such issues...

I really hate to be a grammar Nazi, but here I feel I must. What you just described is a format which is safe (for non-print) and neutral (among non-vendors). If you want to turn a phrase into an adjective, you need a hyphen between the words, and if you want to add a non, that's another hyphen. It's the difference between a non-French language teacher (who could not come from France) or a non-French-language teacher (who teaches a language other than French).

dailywtf

[Anonymous Coward]

you can go to thedailywtf and ask for the emails :)

I used to do the hiring for my company, and...

[el chief]

1. i used to recruit on craigslist, cuz that's where the smart and nerdy people were. now it's just weird poor people.

2. i would print all the resumes and cover letters, read them carefully, and throw out any that had even the slightest spelling or grammar mistake (and I'm a grammar nazi) - though I'm sure I'll make a mistake in this post...

3. in the interview, i would do my best to find out if the guy was a fucking idiot or not. "what percentage of ducks have below average IQ (for a duck)?", "how may fire hydrants are there in vancouver?", "write some code that does this". "tell me an example of when you went above the call of duty"

that's about it. we got some good hires.

Re:for proper badness certification trumps all els

[Anonymous Coward]

He means anything that is "$COMPANY certified"

Even Cisco certified?

Certain products are untrivial to use (for good reason), and their certifications do have use beyond mere marketing.

My favorite is #2

[Anonymous Coward]

"Put an Arbitrary Number Next to Each Skill"

I can remember several years ago seeing those arbitrary #s exceeding the length of time that various technologies/languages/applications had been around sometimes by as much as twice as long as they had been generally publicly available. (e.g. assuming that Sun was using Java for something internally for a few years before kicking it out into the light, etc. but then if I had been with Sun ATTM and had access to pre-1.0 Java in their R&D group WITH would I want a crappy job with company listing dubious job opening...)

My second favorite is perusing the entry level positions with unGodly high arbitrary number before the same random(apparently) acronyms. (i.e. to me they generally look to be mid-senior level yet likely the PHB wants to only pay peanuts...)

My feeling on alot of the the above 2 cases is that the opening listings are CYA for when they actually REALLY REALLY REALLY want to outsource the job but for some legal reason need to theoretically, attempt to post it nationally.

Re:Crappy programmers - anecdote

[RockDoctor]

A year later, [SNIP] and the Indian guy is nowhere to be found. My acquaintance can't even get his password to login to the site and disable the malware.

That is your friend's fault for not ensuring that he had the passwords as part of the late stage of paying for the job. No password ; no second half of the payment. That's as dumb as buying a car but not getting the keys.
If you knew about this before your friend ran into trouble, then you're at fault for not telling him of the hazards that he's risking.

Re:Subtly different from how to scare aware good o

[sjames]

Truly. In particular, if you ask for details or elements of the design of a project they have done in the past, they will likely be happy to talk about it and if they know the fundamentals it will be obvious. It will also be fairly clear if they either don't know them or if they only know them by rote.

Re:Subtly different from how to scare aware good o

[IICV]

Yeah, exactly. This is how it went:

Manager: "Put out a job description, but word it so that we won't get any applicants. We just want an excuse to import an H1B who'll work for peanuts."
HR: "Okay!"

---- later ---

Manager: "Oh shit, an actual American who expects some kind of quality of life applied! Quick, get rid of him somehow!"
Interviewer: "So what's the difference between a String and a StringBuilder?"

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[Bryan3000000]

I'm not a coder or developer. But, whether on the business side or technical side (I've been both), I've found that companies that insist on something like resumes in Word format stick to many internal policies that impede getting work done. Often, this is a misguided attempt to comply with some perceived directive or regulation, but generally it could be implemented with a simple procedure and no impediment. In other words, companies like these tend to be full of managers who don't know how to do things in a clear, straightforward manner and actually get things done.

Yes, I learned to avoid even applying to such companies. People who insist on a single standard from an outsider tend to be closed minded and inflexible, especially when that standard typically results in documents whose formatting gets completely messed up just because you have a different printer (Word actually changes things like line breaks and page breaks depending on printer, and I've had it completely destroy a resume's formatting based on that difference alone). Looking bad to a potential employer because they use a different brand of printer is not cool. Judging a potential employee because Microsoft products do this does not say good things about a manager's intelligence or character.

People who want PDFs or plain text resumes (often depending on the type of position) tend to be good people to work for. People who at least accept PDFs or plain text without prejudice also tend to be decent.

And, by the way, working on your resume either during work hours or on an employer-owned machine just to use that expensive copy of Word (a program I have no personal use for) legally is also not a very slick move in my humble opinion.

You may be in the majority of large corporate culture, but I can assure you that mindset is not in any way normal.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[lgw]

Google and Apple aren't particularly great places to work, assuming you still need money. Any "sexy" company knows it can pay less and get away with it. There's cool work to be done at a great many software companies, if you filter on the actual problem they're trying to solve instead of meaningless evangelism (of course, I personally exclude Google due to my meaningless evangelism about their C++ coding standards, so I'm one to talk). As far as my company, we just had a reasonably sucessful startup exit - which is pretty amazing given the current economy, even if it didn't make us all rich as it would have in the dot-com era.

And sure, you might have several offers worth X (in terms of pay + cool problems), but if you take preparation for your job hunt seriously you might find 1.5X. A few years ago I did, after sinking quite a bit into things like new clothes, a home scanner/fax (I was looking to leave my state), professional resume prep advice, etc.

Job hunting is a game with an arbitrary set of rules. A real engineer knows how to find an optimal solution in such situations, while a poor one bitches about the unfairness of the rules.

Re:Resumes in Word not hard for Java/Unix people..

[TimTucker]

Of course, the presumption here is that the HR departments would actually be reading the word documents themselves -- in many cases, it'll be someone from HR screening a version of the document that their recruiting management software had processed into its own database.