[ale] [SEMI-OT] Skills for programmers/engineers?

[John Heim]

On 01/27/14 14:00, Jim Lynch wrote:
> On 01/27/2014 12:16 PM, Rev. Johnny Healey wrote:
>> When I have done interviews in the past, I usually would expect the 
>> candidate to be able to implement a short algorithm (in their 
>> language of choice or pseudocode) and express the runtime in Big-O 
>> notation.
> That's the interview I'd walk out on.  Give me a week to perform and 
> then judge my work on a REAL problem, but don't try to make a monkey 
> out of me.  Thanks, but no thanks.
>
> Jim
 >>>>

I pretty much agree. Well, Rev  did say he'd take pseudocode which would 
be a basic test of your understanding of programming. My department once 
hired a guy who had a BS in Comp Sci but had never written a line of 
code in his life. He couldn't even write HTML. The guy had a Comp Sci 
degree and it never even occured to me that he didn't know how to 
program at least a little. We never even thought to ask that.

Once I was asked in a job interview to write some RPG. I had RPG on my 
resume as one of the languages I knew but it had been a few years and I 
couldn't remember a thing. I didn't get that job which may have been a 
good thing.

Another time  I was asked in a job interview which languages I knew. I'm 
not sure I'd have the bravado to give this answer today but the guy 
doing the interview said it was  my answer to this question that got me 
the job. I said, "Well, I know all of them. Once you've learned three or 
four, you know them all. Give me an afternoon  with a new language and 
I'll be able to produce working code. Give me a week and i'll be fluent."

Really, depending on how much time you have to let  an employee develop, 
it doesn't matter what they know.  I suppose you can't take someone 
fresh out of college and say, "Okay, build us a web site where people 
can sign up for health care." But if you're hoping your hire will be 
around for five or six years, it probably doesn't matter what they know 
at the time of the interview.