Short for observation. Our coaches (read: Nazi prison guards) listen to some percentage of our calls to make sure we're not rude or blowing off customers. They also look at our screens to make sure we're not browsing/. or accessing our home machines.
Basically what it comes down to is, they're lazy. I've brought that up more times than I can count, and it's "Hey, good idea, I'll bring that up at the next meeting."
LOL... at my ISP we're not even allowed to transfer calls to specific techs. I get to run through ICWs 20 times a day while people who don't know what a port is tells the Linux customers to get bent.
The only ISPs that could afford to have a specialist for OS's would have to have over a million customers. The one I work for has about 500,000 and I get about 1 call every 4 months from someone using Linux/OS2/Somethingelse. There's ~120 techs at the company, and if they get the same amount, then that would give your OS specialist just over 1 call per day. Just isn't worth it. 98% of the people run Windows or Mac, and 95% of the people running other don't need help setting up a PPP or ethernet connection.
Case in point... me:) I'm a qualified tech on the front line, and I AM in the loony bin. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! !!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAW WWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!
Buahahaha ahahhahahahah ahahahahhTBBBBBBPHHHHHHHH!
2 YEARS OF FRONT LINE TECH SUPPORT, BIATCHES!!! WAHOOOO!!!
I can write C++, recomplie a kernel, make up firewall rules and routing tables in my sleep, and I'm talking to people that don't know you have to push the little tab down to pull the phone cord out WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
*stares into space and drools*
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I can't get a decent job without a college degreeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Management likes shorter calls, poor techs like shorter calls. I like longer calls. The more I can stretch it out, the better. As it is, I'm so far above the highest metric for CPH that I get told to slow down. Their reasoning is that I'm going so fast I can't possibly be fixing their problem, even though I have almost 0 callbacks. I'm pretty sure that deep down they think I figured out a way to trick the ticketing system, especially since I get ob'd literally 1 in 3 calls I take. It's a pain in the ass, because the ob software slows my machine down to a crawl. Meanwhile, techs taking half as many calls as me get ob'd like 1 in 50 calls. Probably doesn't help that I've testified against them a few times in our union lawsuit...
Start off every call with "OK, go ahead and restart your computer." That's a great one, because if they're not talkative it's like a mini break. Reinstall TCP/IP every excuse you get, that's 2 reboots unless they only have one phone line. Oh, and when the call starts, just let 'em talk. They'll usually go for about two minutes, and only the last few sentences usually matter, so you can tune 'em out and just kind of skim what they're saying. And if they say that you're being rude, just tell them, "I'm not being rude, ma'am." They always believe it. I don't know why, but they do.
Nope, not hard to catch, especially considering that even if your compiler doesn't that you made an assignment in a conditional (get a new complier:P), I don't know of ANY compilers that don't fail to compile completely if you try to assign a value to a function.
It takes exactly the same amount of mental effort to put an rval-only on the left side of your equality operator as it takes to make sure that you use '==' instead of '='. If he's putting bad examples like that in print, how good of an interviewer is he?
Some signs of a good programmer: good programmers have a habit of writing their { and then skipping down to the bottom of the page and writing their }s right away, then filling in the blank later.
Sounds great, Joel! <smile, nod amiably, back slowly toward door>
This IS in fact a sign of a good programmer. A good programmer looks at as few different levels of complexity at a time as possible. Although it doesn't make sense when you're doing something like
if (foo == bar) { barTheFoo(foo); }
when you won't be coming back to that for a while, only a sadist would make himself try to parse the different levels every time he comes back to it until he's done.
They also tend to have some kind of a variable naming convention, primitive though it may be... Good programmers tend to use really short variable names for loop indices. If they name their loop index CurrentPagePositionLoopCounter it is (a) sure sign that they have not written a lot of code in their life.
Or that they just like long variable names. The most annoying programmers to work with (and the ones I'd be least likely to hire) are the ones who use names like "i1", "i11", "ii1", "iii1", "a2", "b" for everything.
Using those short names for everything is annoying, but good truly good program structure can alleviate that to the point that it isn't even an issue anymore unless they write code that looks like it's been disassembled. Using long loop counter names IS a sign of either a novice programmer or one who is completely uninterested in saving time.
For example, if you ask them to reverse a linked list, good candidates will always make a little drawing on the side and draw all the pointers and where they go. They have to. It is humanly impossible to write code to reverse a linked list without drawing little boxes with arrows between them. Bad programmers will start writing code right away.
Okey-dokey, then.
Agreed. That was one of the dumbest statements I've heard in a long time.
Occasionally, you will see a C programmer write something like if (0==strlen(x)), putting the constant on the left hand side of the == . This is a really good sign. It means that they were stung once too many times by confusing = and == and have forced themselves to learn a new habit to avoid that trap.
Since when is strlen() a valid lval? The compiler would warn you either way, and putting the constant on the left... just feels wrong. Besides, anyone who's been programming C for a while can count the number of = and == in a page of code in a couple seconds. If you get tripped up by that, a good interviewer would smell you from a mile away.
RPG and C++ exclusive? Heh, I'd say if you know RPG and nothing else, you're not a programmer, and this is coming from someone who did RPG for three years.
Re:There is a much easier way of getting this effe
on
The Bionic Office
·
· Score: 1
Ah, but then you can only work one or two days a week, or it would start getting very expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no such word as beit.
Even if there was, it would only be one syllable.
Hahaha!
pwned.
Nature doesn't defy logic, your logic is wrong.
Javascript.
under the limit heroine
Joan of Arc?
Woah! I'm in the Rochester area, and this guy looks awesome! Thanks!
Short for observation. Our coaches (read: Nazi prison guards) listen to some percentage of our calls to make sure we're not rude or blowing off customers. They also look at our screens to make sure we're not browsing /. or accessing our home machines.
Basically what it comes down to is, they're lazy. I've brought that up more times than I can count, and it's "Hey, good idea, I'll bring that up at the next meeting."
Well, great. After hearing that I just want to go jump in the river. Got any good spots picked out? :P
LOL... at my ISP we're not even allowed to transfer calls to specific techs. I get to run through ICWs 20 times a day while people who don't know what a port is tells the Linux customers to get bent.
The only ISPs that could afford to have a specialist for OS's would have to have over a million customers. The one I work for has about 500,000 and I get about 1 call every 4 months from someone using Linux/OS2/Somethingelse. There's ~120 techs at the company, and if they get the same amount, then that would give your OS specialist just over 1 call per day. Just isn't worth it. 98% of the people run Windows or Mac, and 95% of the people running other don't need help setting up a PPP or ethernet connection.
Case in point... me :) I'm a qualified tech on the front line, and I AM in the loony bin. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! !!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAW WWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!
Buahahaha ahahhahahahah ahahahahhTBBBBBBPHHHHHHHH!
2 YEARS OF FRONT LINE TECH SUPPORT, BIATCHES!!! WAHOOOO!!!
I can write C++, recomplie a kernel, make up firewall rules and routing tables in my sleep, and I'm talking to people that don't know you have to push the little tab down to pull the phone cord out WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
*stares into space and drools*
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I can't get a decent job without a college degreeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
*bounces off into the woods*
Management likes shorter calls, poor techs like shorter calls. I like longer calls. The more I can stretch it out, the better. As it is, I'm so far above the highest metric for CPH that I get told to slow down. Their reasoning is that I'm going so fast I can't possibly be fixing their problem, even though I have almost 0 callbacks. I'm pretty sure that deep down they think I figured out a way to trick the ticketing system, especially since I get ob'd literally 1 in 3 calls I take. It's a pain in the ass, because the ob software slows my machine down to a crawl. Meanwhile, techs taking half as many calls as me get ob'd like 1 in 50 calls. Probably doesn't help that I've testified against them a few times in our union lawsuit...
Start off every call with "OK, go ahead and restart your computer." That's a great one, because if they're not talkative it's like a mini break. Reinstall TCP/IP every excuse you get, that's 2 reboots unless they only have one phone line. Oh, and when the call starts, just let 'em talk. They'll usually go for about two minutes, and only the last few sentences usually matter, so you can tune 'em out and just kind of skim what they're saying. And if they say that you're being rude, just tell them, "I'm not being rude, ma'am." They always believe it. I don't know why, but they do.
I can agree with this. Upstate NY here also, and out in the middle of nowhere I'm usually 1-3 bars above any other phone around me (Sanyo 8100).
You're a idiot.
Somebody get these geeks dates quick! I don't want any of you fruit baskets behind me.
If you're too stupid to put a foot on the ground when you start tipping, yeah, I'd expect to be losing teeth all over the place.
Not to mention pulling that phone out within 50 miles of anyone guarantees a fist in the teeth.
But what do you do when it takes a sheet to get off?
Well, other than the fact that the person talking about this has actually managed to pull it off with Phantasy Star II and III...
Nope, not hard to catch, especially considering that even if your compiler doesn't that you made an assignment in a conditional (get a new complier :P), I don't know of ANY compilers that don't fail to compile completely if you try to assign a value to a function.
It takes exactly the same amount of mental effort to put an rval-only on the left side of your equality operator as it takes to make sure that you use '==' instead of '='. If he's putting bad examples like that in print, how good of an interviewer is he?
Some signs of a good programmer: good programmers have a habit of writing their { and then skipping down to the bottom of the page and writing their }s right away, then filling in the blank later.
Sounds great, Joel! <smile, nod amiably, back slowly toward door>
This IS in fact a sign of a good programmer. A good programmer looks at as few different levels of complexity at a time as possible. Although it doesn't make sense when you're doing something like
when you won't be coming back to that for a while, only a sadist would make himself try to parse the different levels every time he comes back to it until he's done.They also tend to have some kind of a variable naming convention, primitive though it may be... Good programmers tend to use really short variable names for loop indices. If they name their loop index CurrentPagePositionLoopCounter it is (a) sure sign that they have not written a lot of code in their life.
Or that they just like long variable names. The most annoying programmers to work with (and the ones I'd be least likely to hire) are the ones who use names like "i1", "i11", "ii1", "iii1", "a2", "b" for everything.
Using those short names for everything is annoying, but good truly good program structure can alleviate that to the point that it isn't even an issue anymore unless they write code that looks like it's been disassembled. Using long loop counter names IS a sign of either a novice programmer or one who is completely uninterested in saving time.
For example, if you ask them to reverse a linked list, good candidates will always make a little drawing on the side and draw all the pointers and where they go. They have to. It is humanly impossible to write code to reverse a linked list without drawing little boxes with arrows between them. Bad programmers will start writing code right away.
Okey-dokey, then.
Agreed. That was one of the dumbest statements I've heard in a long time.
Occasionally, you will see a C programmer write something like if (0==strlen(x)), putting the constant on the left hand side of the == . This is a really good sign. It means that they were stung once too many times by confusing = and == and have forced themselves to learn a new habit to avoid that trap.
Since when is strlen() a valid lval? The compiler would warn you either way, and putting the constant on the left ... just feels wrong. Besides, anyone who's been programming C for a while can count the number of = and == in a page of code in a couple seconds. If you get tripped up by that, a good interviewer would smell you from a mile away.
Nope. If you have 4 programmers, two of them are in the top 50% of the programmers you have. If you have 5000, 2500 of them are in the top 50%
RPG and C++ exclusive? Heh, I'd say if you know RPG and nothing else, you're not a programmer, and this is coming from someone who did RPG for three years.
Ah, but then you can only work one or two days a week, or it would start getting very expensive.