How about a middle-aged programmer with loads of experience AND a
degree?
by that time, he may not be or want to be a programmer anymore 
Programming per se is like an artist composing music.. The reward is inside
stuff... (money and scaling corp ladder come secondary)..
Try a hiring question like this: "Do you want to be a programmer forever?".
It's a good filter and they mostly cannot fake it..
Gennady.
kind regards -botp
Gennady [mailto:gfb@tonesoft.com] wrote:
Very good. Very good.
On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 11:46:12 +0900, "Pe?a, Botp" wrote:
Gennady [mailto:gfb@tonesoft.com] wrote:
Try a hiring question like this: "Do you want to be a programmer forever?".
It's a good filter and they mostly cannot fake it..
--
Jim Freeze
Jim Freeze wrote:
On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 11:46:12 +0900, "Pe?a, Botp" wrote:
Gennady [mailto:gfb@tonesoft.com] wrote:
Try a hiring question like this: "Do you want to be a programmer forever?".
It's a good filter and they mostly cannot fake it..Very good. Very good.
So, what would be the acceptable answers?
- dan
--
...
... dhtapp is a cox dot net account
...
I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
Dan Tapp wrote:
Jim Freeze wrote:
On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 11:46:12 +0900, "Pe?a, Botp" wrote:
Gennady [mailto:gfb@tonesoft.com] wrote:
Try a hiring question like this: "Do you want to be a programmer forever?".
It's a good filter and they mostly cannot fake it..Very good. Very good.
So, what would be the acceptable answers?
- dan
Dan Tapp wrote:
So, what would be the acceptable answers?
"Yes, provided I get to choose the languages, projects, tools, co-workers and torture instruments to be used upon any management/sales drones thinking they can decide for me."
--
(\[ Kent Dahl ]/)_ _~_ _____[ Kent Dahl - Kent Dahl ]_____/~
))\_student_/(( \__d L b__/ Master of Science in Technology )
( \__\_õ|õ_/__/ ) _) Industrial economics and technology management (
\____/_ö_\____/ (____engineering.discipline_=_Computer::Technology___)
>>> Try a hiring question like this: "Do you want to be a programmer
>>> forever?".
>>> It's a good filter and they mostly cannot fake it..
> So, what would be the acceptable answers?
And Tyler replied:
I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
Hm. Do you feel that there's a different calling to which a programmer
should aspire? I mean... "architect", or some such?
Yours,
Tom
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 01:21, Tyler Zesiger wrote:
Maybe not some specific calling, but one should have SOME aspiration
to "move up/on" occasionally; I THINK that's what he was getting at.
On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:48:30 +0900, Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
> I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
Hm. Do you feel that there's a different calling to which a programmer
should aspire? I mean... "architect", or some such?
Yup, I agree that that's what he was getting at. But is "architect" the
sort of thing that one would move up to? Or maybe "CIO" or some other
non-technical sort of thing?
Or were you just thinking of "moving on" in the sense of moving to a
different type of programming - i.e., embedded vs web or some such?
I guess I'm just interested in exploring what folks think a programmer
should aspire to move on to.
Yours,
Tom
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 09:56, Michael Campbell wrote:
On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:48:30 +0900, Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
> > I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
>
> Hm. Do you feel that there's a different calling to which a programmer
> should aspire? I mean... "architect", or some such?Maybe not some specific calling, but one should have SOME aspiration
to "move up/on" occasionally; I THINK that's what he was getting at.
At my company, we have two career tracks (called ladders):
Technical and Managerial.
You can be either an individual contributor, or a manager. 
Some tech people are team leads or may have direct reports,
but they are not considered managers -- I'm not sure
where the line is drawn.
As for myself, I can't bring myself to aspire to a manager
position yet. Maybe when I am older (like 80). There
are some multi talented people out there, but I wonder if
a good programmer can really aspire to a managerial postion.
To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?
On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 23:02:22 +0900, Tom Copeland wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 09:56, Michael Campbell wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:48:30 +0900, Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
>
> > > I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
> >
> > Hm. Do you feel that there's a different calling to which a programmer
> > should aspire? I mean... "architect", or some such?
>
> Maybe not some specific calling, but one should have SOME aspiration
> to "move up/on" occasionally; I THINK that's what he was getting at.Yup, I agree that that's what he was getting at. But is "architect" the
sort of thing that one would move up to? Or maybe "CIO" or some other
non-technical sort of thing?Or were you just thinking of "moving on" in the sense of moving to a
different type of programming - i.e., embedded vs web or some such?I guess I'm just interested in exploring what folks think a programmer
should aspire to move on to.
--
Jim Freeze
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
I don't know about 'should', but as someone who moved from physics into
programming, my eventual goal is to return to school and get a PhD in
theoretical computer science. As long as I'm working in 'industry',
though, I don't want to be anything other than a programmer (which is
not the same thing as saying that I don't want to learn anything).
martin
Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
I guess I'm just interested in exploring what folks think a programmer
should aspire to move on to.
So true. I want to be a better programmer, to someday fix a bug in the
Linux kernel, to write a good first person shooter. I don't want to
"stop/transcend/move on from" programming. And I don't think that's a
bad thing....
Yours,
Tom
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 10:21, Jim Freeze wrote:
To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?
I started a company in 1987. I believe that by 1993 we must
have been 15 people. I was a programmer. A version 2 of our
major product was starting. A year after I realized that there
was an issue. Informal communication was not working anymore.
Bug fixing was constantly delayed. Deadlines were missed.
I then realize that there was a need for somebody to organize
thing so that the product would survive. That is when I
became a manager I guess. A few years latter I was hired as
VP Engineerer of some startup. After the Internet bubble
explosion I worked fixing my old house. Now I am back to
programming. I have always loved that. But at some point I
really felt like there was a need for a manager, I loved
the result of programming (The Product) more than my
contributions to it and I kind of put aside my programming
pleasure to help the product succeed. That worked, very
well, I don't regret it at all.
Not mentioning the fact that as VP Engineerer, I was making
more money that will ever be possible for a programmer in
my country, France. I needed that money to fix my old house.
This story may give you some ideas about why somebody would
move away from something she/he really like.
Yours,
JeanHuguesRobert
At 23:21 09/06/2004 +0900, you wrote:
On Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 23:02:22 +0900, Tom Copeland wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 09:56, Michael Campbell wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:48:30 +0900, Tom Copeland <tom@infoether.com> wrote:
>
> > > I'd be afraid to hire a code-monkey who said yes.
> >
> > Hm. Do you feel that there's a different calling to which a programmer
> > should aspire? I mean... "architect", or some such?
>
> Maybe not some specific calling, but one should have SOME aspiration
> to "move up/on" occasionally; I THINK that's what he was getting at.Yup, I agree that that's what he was getting at. But is "architect" the
sort of thing that one would move up to? Or maybe "CIO" or some other
non-technical sort of thing?Or were you just thinking of "moving on" in the sense of moving to a
different type of programming - i.e., embedded vs web or some such?I guess I'm just interested in exploring what folks think a programmer
should aspire to move on to.At my company, we have two career tracks (called ladders):
Technical and Managerial.You can be either an individual contributor, or a manager.
Some tech people are team leads or may have direct reports,
but they are not considered managers -- I'm not sure
where the line is drawn.As for myself, I can't bring myself to aspire to a manager
position yet. Maybe when I am older (like 80). There
are some multi talented people out there, but I wonder if
a good programmer can really aspire to a managerial postion.To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?--
Jim Freeze
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17
Ditto. When hiring an artist, should one be wary of people who want to be an
artist forever? When hiring a gardener, should one be wary of people who
want to garden forever? I don't see the logic in refusing to hire a person
because they love their work and want to keep doing it the rest of their
life.
Sean O'Dell
On Wednesday 09 June 2004 07:33, Tom Copeland wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 10:21, Jim Freeze wrote:
> To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
> How could someone aspire to move away from something they
> really love?So true. I want to be a better programmer, to someday fix a bug in the
Linux kernel, to write a good first person shooter. I don't want to
"stop/transcend/move on from" programming. And I don't think that's a
bad thing....
Nice story. So, was it the money or the rescuing of the product.
If they paid you less to manage the product, would you have
switched from being a developer?
On Thursday, 10 June 2004 at 3:54:02 +0900, Jean-Hugues ROBERT wrote:
At 23:21 09/06/2004 +0900, you wrote:
I started a company in 1987. I believe that by 1993 we must
have been 15 people. I was a programmer. A version 2 of our
major product was starting. A year after I realized that there
was an issue. Informal communication was not working anymore.
Bug fixing was constantly delayed. Deadlines were missed.
I then realize that there was a need for somebody to organize
thing so that the product would survive. That is when I
became a manager I guess. A few years latter I was hired as
VP Engineerer of some startup. After the Internet bubble
explosion I worked fixing my old house. Now I am back to
programming. I have always loved that. But at some point I
really felt like there was a need for a manager, I loved
the result of programming (The Product) more than my
contributions to it and I kind of put aside my programming
pleasure to help the product succeed. That worked, very
well, I don't regret it at all.Not mentioning the fact that as VP Engineerer, I was making
more money that will ever be possible for a programmer in
my country, France. I needed that money to fix my old house.This story may give you some ideas about why somebody would
move away from something she/he really like.
--
Jim Freeze
James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total
indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
-- Tom Stoppard
I've had similar experiences...it's frustrating to program on projects that lack good requirements, so I took up business analysis and requirements theory. Good requirements don't fly without good project management, so I took that up. Project management doesn't fly without good architecture, so I took that up. Getting all that working doesn't fly without teams and effective organizational capability, so I took that up- CMM and all that. Then I realized I was starting to suck as a programmer, so I took that up again. Then I realized Java sucks, so I'm now learning ruby, python, lisp, smalltalk and scheme. Now I am just confused, and wonder how civilization ever happened :).
In general, I think of myself as more of an engineer focused on the end product, and programming is the medium that creates it. I really want the end product to succeed, and I'll do almost anything necessary to accomplish that.
Nick
Jean-Hugues ROBERT wrote:
... snipped...
At my company, we have two career tracks (called ladders):
Technical and Managerial.You can be either an individual contributor, or a manager.
Some tech people are team leads or may have direct reports,
but they are not considered managers -- I'm not sure
where the line is drawn.As for myself, I can't bring myself to aspire to a manager
position yet. Maybe when I am older (like 80). There
are some multi talented people out there, but I wonder if
a good programmer can really aspire to a managerial postion.To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?--
Jim Freeze
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
I started a company in 1987. I believe that by 1993 we must
have been 15 people. I was a programmer. A version 2 of our
major product was starting. A year after I realized that there
was an issue. Informal communication was not working anymore.
Bug fixing was constantly delayed. Deadlines were missed.
I then realize that there was a need for somebody to organize
thing so that the product would survive. That is when I
became a manager I guess. A few years latter I was hired as
VP Engineerer of some startup. After the Internet bubble
explosion I worked fixing my old house. Now I am back to
programming. I have always loved that. But at some point I
really felt like there was a need for a manager, I loved
the result of programming (The Product) more than my
contributions to it and I kind of put aside my programming
pleasure to help the product succeed. That worked, very
well, I don't regret it at all.Not mentioning the fact that as VP Engineerer, I was making
more money that will ever be possible for a programmer in
my country, France. I needed that money to fix my old house.This story may give you some ideas about why somebody would
move away from something she/he really like.Yours,
JeanHuguesRobert
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17
This translates to me to not wanting to learn, and that I can do without.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 01:03:27 +0900, Sean O'Dell <sean@celsoft.com> wrote:
Ditto. When hiring an artist, should one be wary of people who want to be an
artist forever? When hiring a gardener, should one be wary of people who
want to garden forever? I don't see the logic in refusing to hire a person
because they love their work and want to keep doing it the rest of their
life.
When interviewing, I would probe for deeper ambitions. Someone who is, or will be, a master artist will have ambitions beyond just doing their own art all day. And if they don't, I'd try to see if the could be coaxed into broadening their horizons.
For example, a master artist is the kind of guy I'd want involved in arranging a movie set, or teaching, or *something* besides just churning out art all day.
Same goes for the programmer. I'd want to hire a programmer that wants to do more than just programming, even if his daily duties will still involve a lot of that. The best programmers have more than one area of expertise. Programming is just a tool to get something done. The guy who has a good understanding of biology, or accounting, or whatever, will be better at programming solutions to problems in those areas.
Sean O'Dell wrote:
On Wednesday 09 June 2004 07:33, Tom Copeland wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 10:21, Jim Freeze wrote:
To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?So true. I want to be a better programmer, to someday fix a bug in the
Linux kernel, to write a good first person shooter. I don't want to
"stop/transcend/move on from" programming. And I don't think that's a
bad thing....Ditto. When hiring an artist, should one be wary of people who want to be an artist forever? When hiring a gardener, should one be wary of people who want to garden forever? I don't see the logic in refusing to hire a person because they love their work and want to keep doing it the rest of their life.
Sean O'Dell
Have you checked out Dylan? It's a bit of an improvement over smalltalk supposedly. I've been looking it over, and I like it so far.
Nicholas Van Weerdenburg wrote:
Then I realized Java sucks, so I'm now learning ruby, python, lisp, smalltalk and scheme. Now I am just confused, and wonder how civilization ever happened :).
[snip]
Nick
Jean-Hugues ROBERT wrote:
... snipped...
At my company, we have two career tracks (called ladders):
Technical and Managerial.You can be either an individual contributor, or a manager.
Some tech people are team leads or may have direct reports,
but they are not considered managers -- I'm not sure
where the line is drawn.As for myself, I can't bring myself to aspire to a manager
position yet. Maybe when I am older (like 80). There
are some multi talented people out there, but I wonder if
a good programmer can really aspire to a managerial postion.To be a good programmer, you really have to love what you do.
How could someone aspire to move away from something they
really love?--
Jim Freeze
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.I started a company in 1987. I believe that by 1993 we must
have been 15 people. I was a programmer. A version 2 of our
major product was starting. A year after I realized that there
was an issue. Informal communication was not working anymore.
Bug fixing was constantly delayed. Deadlines were missed.
I then realize that there was a need for somebody to organize
thing so that the product would survive. That is when I
became a manager I guess. A few years latter I was hired as
VP Engineerer of some startup. After the Internet bubble
explosion I worked fixing my old house. Now I am back to
programming. I have always loved that. But at some point I
really felt like there was a need for a manager, I loved
the result of programming (The Product) more than my
contributions to it and I kind of put aside my programming
pleasure to help the product succeed. That worked, very
well, I don't regret it at all.Not mentioning the fact that as VP Engineerer, I was making
more money that will ever be possible for a programmer in
my country, France. I needed that money to fix my old house.This story may give you some ideas about why somebody would
move away from something she/he really like.Yours,
JeanHuguesRobert
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17
In the first company, that I co-owned, I believe that it was
rescuing the product (and the company) that was my main reason
for switching. Then... I leveraged the skill that I had
acquired as a manager when later getting hired by a startup. I
really enjoyed that because it was a startup, behaving like
one. Money aside, I would rather be a programmer today, it is
*much less* stressful !!! However I suspect that it is most
probable that I would feel some frustration due to my manager's
lack of programming background... I specially don't like the
way the industry pressure you to product bad quality software
while at the same time pretending that quality matters.
OTOH I would have some good point to backup my thoughts
thanks to waterfall disgrace and extreme programming and
other agile processs' momentum.
Yours,
JeanHuguesRobert
At 04:07 10/06/2004 +0900, you wrote:
On Thursday, 10 June 2004 at 3:54:02 +0900, Jean-Hugues ROBERT wrote:
At 23:21 09/06/2004 +0900, you wrote:
I started a company in 1987. I believe that by 1993 we must
have been 15 people. I was a programmer. A version 2 of our
major product was starting. A year after I realized that there
was an issue. Informal communication was not working anymore.
Bug fixing was constantly delayed. Deadlines were missed.
I then realize that there was a need for somebody to organize
thing so that the product would survive. That is when I
became a manager I guess. A few years latter I was hired as
VP Engineerer of some startup. After the Internet bubble
explosion I worked fixing my old house. Now I am back to
programming. I have always loved that. But at some point I
really felt like there was a need for a manager, I loved
the result of programming (The Product) more than my
contributions to it and I kind of put aside my programming
pleasure to help the product succeed. That worked, very
well, I don't regret it at all.Not mentioning the fact that as VP Engineerer, I was making
more money that will ever be possible for a programmer in
my country, France. I needed that money to fix my old house.This story may give you some ideas about why somebody would
move away from something she/he really like.Nice story. So, was it the money or the rescuing of the product.
If they paid you less to manage the product, would you have
switched from being a developer?
--
Jim Freeze
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17
Precisely.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 01:42:46 +0900, Tyler Zesiger <mailing-lists@zesiger.com> wrote:
When interviewing, I would probe for deeper ambitions. Someone who is,
or will be, a master artist will have ambitions beyond just doing their
own art all day. And if they don't, I'd try to see if the could be
coaxed into broadening their horizons.For example, a master artist is the kind of guy I'd want involved in
arranging a movie set, or teaching, or *something* besides just churning
out art all day.Same goes for the programmer. I'd want to hire a programmer that wants
to do more than just programming, even if his daily duties will still
involve a lot of that. The best programmers have more than one area of
expertise. Programming is just a tool to get something done. The guy who
has a good understanding of biology, or accounting, or whatever, will be
better at programming solutions to problems in those areas.