Query

Post #48,105 by ben_tilly 8/5/02 7:02:46 AM Reply	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
Post #48,252 by broomberg 8/5/02 7:39:23 PM Reply	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.
Post #48,261 by ben_tilly 8/5/02 8:51:00 PM Reply	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
Post #48,267 by broomberg 8/5/02 9:13:56 PM Reply	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.
Post #48,276 by ben_tilly 8/5/02 9:44:27 PM 8/5/02 9:52:10 PM Reply	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 Expand All History
Post #48,327 by broomberg 8/6/02 6:24:27 AM Reply	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.
Post #48,500 by ben_tilly 8/6/02 10:46:34 PM Reply	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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