Post #47,787
8/1/02 8:47:24 PM
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Don't master many, but at least be exposed to several?
Perl, being glue, winds up being used to interact with a lot of other technologies. For instance I would not even dream of hiring someone who claimed to be an experienced Perl developer for a web job if they didn't know OO Perl, CGI, and DBI.
That doesn't mean that you need to be a DBA. It does mean that you don't ask stupid questions when someone says, "select foo from bar, baz where bar.blat = baz.blat".
(Of course I could cheerfully recommend someone for a permanent Perl job if they were an experienced developer that I thought was competent.)
Cheers,
Ben
"Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job."
--Unknown
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Post #48,037
8/4/02 11:42:20 AM
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I wouldn't
> (Of course I could cheerfully recommend someone for a permanent Perl job if they were an experienced developer that I thought was competent.)
Perl is WAY too different. I'd make them
do a research project before hiring them,
and see how they managed to learn and
what they came up BEFORE they became a real
employee.
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Post #48,105
8/5/02 7:02:46 AM
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Query
Scott is not a Perl developer. I think we are agreed that he is competent.
Would you really need him to do a research project so that you could judge whether he could learn Perl?
Cheers,
Ben
"Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job."
--Unknown
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Post #48,252
8/5/02 7:39:23 PM
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Poor example
Scott is brilliant.
You said competent.
It is very difficult for me to judge
how competency in one area of programming
would translate into Perl. The person
might suffer from baby chick imprint,
and never be able to code in a different
language. I see it in my office all
the time.
So it would require some proof.
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Post #48,261
8/5/02 8:51:00 PM
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Haggling
Remember the story of Shaw negotiating over sex? He started with a hypothetical offer of a million to establish that the woman was indeed a prostitute before trying to negotiate a more reasonable price.
Same idea.
My point is that there is a level of competency beyond which you would be willing to recommend someone despite their not knowing Perl. I agree that to recommend a non-Perl developer over a Perl developer I would want the non-Perl developer to impress me more. The question then becomes what ability differential is needed to make up for lacking Perl.
Cheers,
Ben
"Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job."
--Unknown
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Post #48,267
8/5/02 9:13:56 PM
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It's in my blood, I have to
But no, you still don't understand!
You used an example of Scott.
Scott is one in a million. So
are you. So am I. The fact I
know both of you just means we
are 3 in 3 million. There are
NOT a lot left. So this means
it is LESS likely that I will
stumble across a person who can
convince me to merely trust them,
rather than prove themselves, no
matter what other languages they
know.
And based on your new example, fine,
she's a hooker. But does she have
aids? Does she swallow? Does she
have a killer pimp? Merely being a
hooker is NOT enough information to
make an informed decision on whether
to sleep with her. Price is one small
piece of the equation.
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Post #48,276
8/5/02 9:44:27 PM
8/5/02 9:52:10 PM
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I think you missed my reference
Perhaps I should refresh your memory...
Shaw: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Madam: Hmm, a million dollars, yeah, I guess I would.
Shaw: Well then, would you sleep with me for ten dollars?
Madam: Sir, what kind of woman do you take me for?
Shaw: Madam, what kind of woman you are has already been established; what remains is just to agree on a price.
My reference might have been an indicator that while I thought that my argument was fundamentally sound, you might be outraged by it. :-) Yes, I know that Scott is exceptional. One in a million? I dunno. I happen to know an amazing number of "one in a million" people. Enough to convince me that what we think of as one in a million isn't, really. Or rather he is, but there are a thousand different talents that strike us as being one in a million, so a thousand in a million can honestly claim to be one in a million at something impressive. Anyways were I in charge of hiring, I would be willing to put my impression of competency before specific skills. Even if I was wrong about their ability at learning that specific skill, if they manage to impress me, there is generally going to be some role where they will work out well, it is just a question of figuring out what. (Unless I am plain wrong, which hopefully I would figure out sooner rather than later.) Cheers, Ben "Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job."
--Unknown
Edited by ben_tilly
Aug. 5, 2002, 09:52:10 PM EDT
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Post #48,327
8/6/02 6:24:27 AM
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Ahh, ye of little HR experience
It is FAR harder to fire a bad programmer
who happened to be a good liar than it
was to hire him.
Even when you figure out they are worthless,
expect to hold on to them for another 3
months, minimum.
And during that timeframe, you have to attempt
to have them do real work, which means they
will screw it up, and increase your workload.
Which will effectively TRIPLE your workload
until they are replaced.
Screw that. Test them.
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Post #48,500
8/6/02 10:46:34 PM
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I would like to believe...
that they would not impress me as competent unless there was something good to be said for them.
Yeah, I am pretty likely wrong. But I don't know of any cases where I have failed yet.
Note that I do give interviewees coding questions. Admittedly carefully chosen so that you could answer them without understanding Perl specifically, but not ones that you can get by just having a few memorized acronyms. (For instance figure out what this code does, why it is slow, and how to fix it.)
Another type of question I like is "explain to me". I will take a basic concept that the person should know (eg for various languages I can ask about OO) and say, "Pretend that I know nothing about X. Explain X to me." I then proceed to interrupt their explanations with "stupid questions" (based on my honest guesses of where a novice might be derailed). It is amazing how quickly people for whom programming was always a black box where you just followed the template that worked get derailed on that one.
I may be foolable. But I don't think that liars in particular find me easy to bypass.
Cheers,
Ben
"Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job."
--Unknown
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