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How to Recognize a Good Programmer
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Jan 11, 2008 03:21 PM
from the looking-beyond-the-resume dept.
from the looking-beyond-the-resume dept.
KDan writes to share an article he has written about what some of the key factors in recognizing a good programmer. "It's not as easy as it sounds. CV experience is only of limited use here, because great programmers don't always have the 'official' experience to demonstrate that they're great. In fact, a lot of that CV experience can be misleading. Yet there are a number of subtle cues that you can get, even from the CV, to figure out whether someone's a great programmer."
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Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Funny)
It's easier than you think:
After sufficient interactions like these with a good programmer you really should be able to recognize him (or her).
(Appropriate apologies to Steve Martin for shameless borrowing of his "How to get a million dollars, and not pay taxes" routine.
Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Insightful)
The best programmers I've worked with are the ones with a diversity of interests, are very capable of interacting with others. Our field demands that we can translate back and forth between business-speak and code. If all I wanted was a code monkey, I'd pick one up from Bangalore.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Insightful)
However get a couple of really great guys who understand each other then you will get superior code in a fraction of the time.
Code that's worthless because it will have to be thrown away when the requirements change and no-one knows how to patch it.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Funny)
What really sets you apart from others, though, is your humility.
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OMG you are kidding right? (Score:5, Insightful)
This comes from experience, I work on multiple networks and have been through more than one web migration. I tell ya, the one thing that bugs me most is short sidedness, these programmers who are very intelligent and write scripts to prove to the world that they are smart. However they forget to document because why should you document something that works? You take those 20 line snippits and after 3 years or so you have about 100 of them in your environment, something breaks and all hell breaks loose for days because your replacement has to grep through all your code while you are unavailable.
Standard, Commented, well structured code is what I look for. You show me code examples that are easy to read and commented well. Also show me a positive attitude and have musical talent and you are hired.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL - I double-dog dare you to post these magical 20 lines here. If you do, I guarantee you will find that:
(A) Most of us will understand it.
(B) Many of us could make it better.
(C) It's definitely not voodoo.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna slightly break protocol here and go right to the dreaded triple-dog dare.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:4, Insightful)
You're fired.
If you aren't writing clear and understandable code, I don't want you on my project.
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Re:it's easier than you think: (Score:5, Insightful)
He/She says:
Unfortunately, the code you write *must* be understandable by other coders otherwise you're worthless to a development team. Assuming you're really so "good" that you can write inexplicable code that's also so awesome that it's used in the real world with no problems, then why are you applying for a job?
He/She says:
Can I see this 20 line snippet and your proof of its correctness?
He/She says:
Why don't you know the difference between "You're," and "Your?"
He/She says:
So... Given that you "have yet to find someone who can understand" your "truely amazing code," how would you propose we find these other "really great guys who understand each other," (but, apparently, not necessarily each other's code) in order to obtain "superior code in a fraction of the time"?
Ow. Your awesomeness hurts my brain. I submit.
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The more important question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Useless article (Score:5, Insightful)
And what is this about startups failing because the business people hire crappy programmers. Has anyone considered that maybe selling pet food over the internet is simply less efficient that the distribution system build by companies like Wal-Mart?
Re:Useless article (Score:5, Insightful)
My definition of a good programmer isn't the worlds most talented codemonkey, but rather the guy that can set the boundaries of the project firmly and manage the expectations of client/boss. Most of the programming nightmares I've seen have nothing to do with programming skills, but mainly because the project went all over the place due to a lack of explicit boundaries.
When people start going "Yeah, that's neat, but if you can put that widget in there, maybe you can put this other widget that Bob in Accounting thought up yesterday afternoon" you know the project is in trouble.
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Re:Useless article-Petsmart. (Score:4, Interesting)
Every interview I've ever had, I interviewed my interviewer as much as they interviewed me. Maybe I'm strange, but it's worked so far.
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CV experience? (Score:5, Funny)
Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
How to recognize a good sysadmin (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe they can, and the sysadmin can just blame the evil bean counters.
They're out there, but scarce.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're out there, but scarce.... (Score:5, Interesting)
As one of the elite few programmers who does know how to spell, thank you for noticing. I would say "take it as a good sign" rather than "get out your checkbook" but I'm just the cautious type I suppose.
However - I can spell, and my brother can't. I believe this has more to do with the teaching methods in our respective elementary schools than with our inherent attention to detail. His school used an experimental method that I think failed him utterly - at a time before national standards were yet fashionable.
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Re:They're out there, but scarce.... (Score:4, Funny)
SomeStupidAssLongClassName clsSomeStupidAssLongClassName = new SomeStupidAssLongClassName();
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The Title is Way Off the Mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Title is Way Off the Mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Excessive use of computers may imply passion, but it also implies early burn-out for most coders I've met. The ones who last and are also good, by contrast, are just the opposite. They work hard at work, and they leave it alone when they're at home. Of course there are exceptions to all rules, and certainly to anecdotal evidence, but that's been my experience thus far.
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That they aren't primarily a programmer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guilty of being one of these types myself, but have since moved up to project management around security type stuff after having taught those who replaced me the things that I learned through experience.
Ask him... (Score:5, Funny)
Easy. I see a damn good programmer when ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy. I see a damn good programmer when ... (Score:4, Funny)
If nothing else, being able to grin, talk, and brush your teeth all at the same time is indeed a rare talent
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Two things (Score:5, Insightful)
However, two things came to mind. The variety part. Yes, its good. I personally am fluent in just about all programming environments known to man, more data storage techs than I can count, too many business types, and things vastly different, like business intelligence and biology (I started as a programmer for R&D biotech softwares).
The catch is, that tends to show that you're too much everywhere. You can take one "enterprise" stack, let say J2EE or
Those are things that makes the difference between a project taking a year, and one taking a month. Once I realised that (and people hiring know this just too well), I specialised in a 2-3 technologies (specialising in just one isn't enough to keep track of the evolution of the field), and I've been a much better developer since then.
You need to have a broad VIEW of the field, but still be specialised, to be efficient at what you do. Knowing 10 technologies equaly well means that you don't know either of them at their peek.
Secondly, the certification thing. We all know certification means crap, I agree, but like the article does state, it helps hiring people to spend less time interviewing you about the obvious. If you say you're Java certified, they can only ask 2-3 questions to make sure you truly are, and forget about testing you on a Java hello world. That way, they can spend more time testing you on the important stuff, like actual development expertise, as opposed to syntax knowledge. Also, having a lot of certifications, if you can prove you didn't brain dump them, can go in the "broad knowledge" and "passionate" part. If you have 12 certifications with 12 technologies, well, it shows you like knowing your stuff (those tests can sometime ask for pretty pointy things...)
Re:Two things (Score:5, Funny)
I kid, I kid!
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Re:Two things (Score:4, Funny)
Then I re-read it... you wrote 10, not ten.
Nice.
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Lots of ways (Score:5, Funny)
But in a pinch you can go with the way that he often goes about wearing your pants or the fact that he stares back at you from the mirror every morning. That's a dead giveaway.
Of course if that fellow's unavailable, most people end up settling for somebody who, while utterly lacking his extraordinary qualities, nonetheless agree with as many of his opinions has he has cared to express.
Passion != "Spare Time" (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that not programming in your spare time makes you a poor programmer is abjectly false and amazingly stupid considering the amount of complaints within the industry about working hours, laundry-list job listings, industry only for the young and unmarried, etc.
I've known too many counter examples to debunk this; people who would talk on end on how "great" and wonderful a technology was only to mis-use it to the detriment of the business and the customer. People who had no lives; bragging about what they did at home, what OSS projects they were working on only to get fired for not being able to understand or structure requirements, not having enough domain knowledge of the industry they were working in, or not being able to meet the customer's needs.
Frankly, I work 50+ hours a week and the last thing I want or feel a need to do is look at a f*cking computer when I go home. And this comes from someone who got a Master's in CS while working full time; led implementation of new technologies and languages within the group.
It sure as _hell_ doesn't mean I don't have passion for what I do.
Baloney (Score:5, Insightful)
Negative indicators:
* Programming is a day job
excuse me, I am a really good programmer, did the whole 9 yards growing up as a stereotypical geek (not into sports, into programming way before it was fashionable to do so, from basic, to turbo pascal, to z80 assembly etc.), I lived and breathed programming and computers for many years of my life, however now I am in my late 30s and I try to have a much healthier work-life balance, I don't see why this should be a negative at all.
If I wasn't working at a computer dev job I would probably be coding a bit for fun, but there is no way that nowadays you could get me to talk shop for hours just for the fun of it.
Also
In fact, the great programmer will be the one talking your ear off about a new technology that you haven't even heard of, explaining to you why you must use it in your business, even if none of your staff knows how to use it. Even if it's a technology he doesn't know how to use yet.
gimme a break, for me this would be a huge no-no, it would be the hallmark of somebody going after every possible latest fad, instead of focusing on proven tools for the job. Yes, there ARE cases where the bleeding edge is needed, but they are the exception rather than the rule: if I have a business I want code that is mantainable, and that, if the 'wiz developer' gets hit by a bus, is understandable by others (read, it's not such a niche skill that if I lose that person my business will fold because it's impossible to find a replacement).
Good programmers will have a tendency to talk your ear off about some technical detail of what they're working on (but while clearly believing, sincerely, that what they're talking about is really worth talking about). Some people might see that as maladapted social skills (which it is), but if you want to recognise a good developer, this passion for what they're doing at the expense of social smoothness is a very strong indicator.
this is another totally bogus criteria: in nowaday's workplace soft skills (being able to work as a team expecially) are just as important; gone are the days of the single programmer in his ivory tower producing code that only himself can understand. You need to have a team, and if I have to choose between person A who is, say, a programmer worth 100/100 but has 0 social skills, and person B who is, say, worth 80/100 but gets along with everybody, I will choose person B every time. A gelled team is greater than the sum of its parts, but you can't gel a team full of primadonnas and socially maladapted people.
If you are such a 'smart' programmer you will realize that 'programming' social interactions is as important as programming computers, and you will apply your skills to that as well, making your workplace a lot better and likely improving drastically your career prospects.
If you're hiring for a small business, or you need really smart developers for a crack team that will implement agile development in your enterprise, you should disregard most formal qualifications as noise.
give me a break, being smart and having no formal qualifications is a lot worse than being smart AND having formal qualifications. I have a M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering: have I used anything I learned in university in my career? Not at all. Have those years broadened my horizons, introduced me to a lot of different concepts and methodologies that made me a much, much, much better programmer than I was before? You bet. Your 'crack team in agile programming' will likely end up implementing something O(n^3) (because they have no clue about computational complexity) while your university educated buzzword-averse reliable programmer will give you O(n^2) or even O(n log n) because they've been there and done that many times before in a lot of different other contexts.
THESE to me are the signs of a great programmer, experience, good grasp of architectural con
Re:Baloney (Score:5, Interesting)
The change? Full-time job. After spending a full day programming to earn my paycheck, it just becomes mentally separated from what I do in my spare time. I kind of miss the old college days when I could just spend hours and hours doing it for fun, but now I just want to zone out.
As for the new technology part, I somewhat agree... A good programmer shouldn't be ranting about how everything MUST be done on Ruby-on-Rails, because that's the new fad (Yes, I realize it no longer is. That's the point)... A good programmer will look at a new technology, look at the needs of the project/business, and decide whether or not that technology is a good fit. If it's a major improvement that fixes existing problems, then he'll start pushing it.
On the other hand, when you're interviewing a programmer, and ask them about some personal project or technology they worked with, getting your ear talked off is a good sign, because this ties into the whole "passion" part. If they find this project or tech interesting enough to ramble on about, this is probably someone who's in the industry because they enjoy it, not because their high school guidance counselor told them it pays well.
So, on to social skills. Yes, you need to be able to communicate with and get along with other programmers, even those who aren't on the same level. Apart from that, the importance varies depending on the person's role. If they're going to be one programmer on a large team, working off design documents and style conventions, then it's not that important. If they're on a smaller team, and will be working directly with the business side to design parts of the application, then social skills become a necessity. Of course, if you find someone who just wants to sit in a dark room apart from the rest of the team, and just silently deliver code modules to them, then you might want to look elsewhere.
Qualifications... Degrees... I think the article was basically preaching against certifications, and in that respect I agree entirely. I don't care if someone passed a certification test by Microsoft or Sun... That means they know how to work with one specific area of technology, well enough to pass a test once. It doesn't say whether they can think for themselves, or adapt to a new situation.
On the other hand, an undergrad degree can be a good thing. You don't learn how to program in college (Well, I hope not), but you do learn how not to reinvent the wheel. You learn some standard algorithms, data structures, and methodologies, and you learn about lots of things that you'll consider useless at the time (Natural sciences, higher maths, etc), but will still influence the way you think. A master's degree or doctorate, well, I don't know... I've worked with PhDs who couldn't think outside the smallest box, and I've worked with a few who could work miracles. A dropout might be a bad sign (Though not a disqualifier, depending on other factors), but I wouldn't trust a PhD to necessarily be better than an MS or BS.
In short, you make some good points, but you're leaning toward the other extreme. Remember, you're looking for a programmer, not a corporate executive. This is about looking past the doublespeak and self-promotion and determining whether someone can write quality software.
On a side note... The phrase "working yourself out of a job" is starting to look really scary... I shouldn't have automated this place so well that I have nothing to do but post on slashdot...
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See previous article (Score:5, Funny)
I can't agree with all of this (Score:5, Insightful)
He lists as a negative indicator *anyone* who considers programming as a "day job." I know quite a few programmers who consider programming a day job. They come into work at 9, they work for 8 hours, they go home at 5, and then they do something entirely different. But the code that they produce while at work is brilliant. They are extremely bright people who enjoy programming, but don't live and breath it. They would rather do something else while not at work.
He lists as a positive indicator *anyone* who is passionate about technology. Sorry, but I've met a lot of people who are bubbling over with enthusiasm about programming, but can't code worth shit. These are the people dive headfirst into a programming job without any thought of design or architecture, and you end up with an application that uses half a dozen bleeding edge technologies, all bundled together with virtual duct tape, that disintegrates at the first input exception.
He? She? (Score:5, Funny)
Point by point (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree with a lot of these points.
Reasonably good indicators
Ability to yammer on about a subject one's audience does not care about is a weak indicator of programming ability and a strong indicator of poor communication skills
OK
NO, NO, NO!
A good programmer has an open mind and makes decisions after thought, study, and understanding the users' needs; not based on some knee-jerk personal prejudice.
There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of company-sponsored courses. Taking advantage of classroom opportunities is just good time management (it can be easier to learn more, faster, in a well-taught course than in self-study).
So what you're looking for is a prima donna who will refuse to work in the environment you ask him to, and is insubordinate out of the gate? No. A good programmer will find the strengths of the technology you've picked and design a strategy that plays to those, rather than just telling you you've made a stupid choice and should have used his pet technology instead.
I don't know if it's ever a good idea to hire someone who "doesn't seem too smart."
That's a stupid criterion. Why someone starting programming is a lot more important than when
Inability to write a complete CV is hardly an indicator of competence. The author is biased in favor of people who started programming at the age of 9, as he did.
Nonsense; depth of knowledge is as important as breadth of knowledge. Ability to justify 50 different buzzwords on one's resume doesn't make someone a good programmer. It is a lot better to talk about the problems the candidate has solved, than the technology used to solve them.
The Python Paradox by Paul Graham (Score:5, Insightful)
Paul Graham
http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html [paulgraham.com]
August 2004
In a recent talk I said something that upset a lot of people: that you could get smarter programmers to work on a Python project than you could to work on a Java project.
I didn't mean by this that Java programmers are dumb. I meant that Python programmers are smart. It's a lot of work to learn a new programming language. And people don't learn Python because it will get them a job; they learn it because they genuinely like to program and aren't satisfied with the languages they already know.
Which makes them exactly the kind of programmers companies should want to hire. Hence what, for lack of a better name, I'll call the Python paradox: if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they'll be able to hire better programmers, because they'll attract only those who cared enough to learn it. And for programmers the paradox is even more pronounced: the language to learn, if you want to get a good job, is a language that people don't learn merely to get a job.
Only a few companies have been smart enough to realize this so far. But there is a kind of selection going on here too: they're exactly the companies programmers would most like to work for. Google, for example. When they advertise Java programming jobs, they also want Python experience.
A friend of mine who knows nearly all the widely used languages uses Python for most of his projects. He says the main reason is that he likes the way source code looks. That may seem a frivolous reason to choose one language over another. But it is not so frivolous as it sounds: when you program, you spend more time reading code than writing it. You push blobs of source code around the way a sculptor does blobs of clay. So a language that makes source code ugly is maddening to an exacting programmer, as clay full of lumps would be to a sculptor.
At the mention of ugly source code, people will of course think of Perl. But the superficial ugliness of Perl is not the sort I mean. Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to build programs out of the wrong concepts. Perl may look like a cartoon character swearing, but there are cases where it surpasses Python conceptually.
So far, anyway. Both languages are of course moving targets. But they share, along with Ruby (and Icon, and Joy, and J, and Lisp, and Smalltalk) the fact that they're created by, and used by, people who really care about programming. And those tend to be the ones who do it well.
Re:Hope this makes it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hope this makes it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Hope this makes it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hope this makes it. (Score:5, Funny)
In the words of my master,
Do or do not.
There is no try.
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Re:BigInt (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:BigInt (Score:5, Funny)
Easy...If they can finish any of these.. don't hire them...
a) I for one welcome our new programming _________
b) In Soviet Russia the programmers ____ ___
c)
1. Hire programmer
2. ?????
3. ______
or make a comment about Macs/PS3/Windows and if you get modded/spelling or grammar corrected.. the same applies.
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Re:BigInt (Score:5, Funny)
b) In Soviet Russia the programmers know math
c)
1. Hire programmer
2. ?????
3. Pay salary!
OK, did I pass the test?
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Re:WTF is a CV? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually have something that is closer to a true CV - a portfolio that is about 25 pages of material of all my IT experience, education, major projects, contacts, letters of recommendation, etc. When I apply for a job I send them my resume but if I get called for an interview I bring in my portfolio and use it during the interview - it often has a very large positive impact.
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Re:At least get a CS degree (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I don't really know if he's right anyways. Everything
C++'s main advantage is the same as Microsoft's: it's everywhere, there are just so many libs out there and there exist language bindings for just about everything. We don't really know anything about the lifespan of computer languages yet. Just when I thought it's finally dead for good, I heard about a release of a new version of a FOSS Pascal compiler.
And we're waaaay offtopic here...
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Re:At least get a CS degree (Score:4, Insightful)
You've never used java before, have you?
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