How to Hire a Programmer

35 points by Terhorst 17 years ago | 20 comments

sofal 17 years ago |

I like cats, percussion, and certain kinds of absurd humor. Even humor as absurd as Ren and Stimpy sometimes. I'm curious if anyone else enjoyed Ren and Stimpy back in the day, since I've found it to be somewhat polarizing (you either loved it or you thought it was the most disgusting crap you'd ever seen).

Hexstream 17 years ago | |

"you either loved it or you thought it was the most disgusting crap you'd ever seen"

Both...

pchristensen 17 years ago | |

Loved it, even owned the music CDs "You Eediot" and "Crock of Christmas"

chuchurocka 17 years ago | |

it was possibly one of the best nicktoons of all time! well, before Billy West took over...

alex_c 17 years ago |

Perhaps a sense of the absurd matters because so much of what developers put up with is absurd - absurd schedules, absurd requirements, absurd hours. Treating the absurdities of the average development process with humor makes developers' jobs much easier.

I think it's rather that you need a good sense of logic to even notice - let alone truly appreciate - the absurdity of certain situations.

pavelludiq 17 years ago |

Im not good in programming, but i love cats, i love monthy python and the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy and i love music and photography. I guess some of those stuff are just signs that you have some qualities that good hackers have. They don't make you good, practice and hard work makes you good. Something that's been troubling me is that my weirdness is much bigger than my actual programming skills and i felt like i haven't earned my privilege to be that kind of person. So I've been working on my coding skills harder lately and i hope to earn my right to be weird and arrogant an annoying to people that bore me, now im just some confused kid :D "attitude is no substitute for confidence" said someone wise(don't remember where I've read it) So if you think that you can go to an interview and act like some weirdo cat lover, you better be able to back up your self with some mad skills :D

tokipin 17 years ago | |

don't be "weird," that's just weird. be yourself. i say this because when i was younger, i had pride in being "weird." at some point though, i realized i was just dicking around with what other people thought of me. it's a waste of time and energy. though it may have been a necessary phase for me

i guess i used it as a "warning" to other people. like "hey! i'm weird! that means if i do something awkward, it's no problem because it's expected!"

now, i am just myself, and too bad if my persona bothers people ^_^ it's a straightforward no-bullshit type of thing. free

eat 17 years ago | |

The correct quote is "attitude is no substitute for competence", and I believe esr said that.

yef 17 years ago |

VB Tech Journal? I don't know, man, this sounds like a personal friend test of the author or something.

Have them program something in the interview. Watch them use their chosen text editor as they work through your problem. Have them run their program and watch them iterate through a few code/test/debug cycles. Once it's working, ask them for a minor but logical improvement, and watch their reaction. Dread at having to go back to the code, or gusto in making it better? How fast can they go back and edit their own code?

For whatever job you're hiring for, have them do the job as part of the interview process.

joshuaxls 17 years ago | |

Did you notice /humor/ in the URL?

yef 17 years ago | | |

Nope :) I tend to read very quickly, and since this is a topic I'm truly interested, I guess I hoped that the author was serious. Thanks for the callout.

DanielBMarkham 17 years ago |

For the last couple of months I've been giving a short presentation to some of my software teams. At the end, I have a slide with "42" on it. I usually say, "And for the answer to everything else, here it is."

Interestingly enough, the analysts don't get it, the PMs sometimes get it, but the programmers most always get the allusion. I should start putting something about cats in there...or perhaps parrots pining for the fjords.

schtog 17 years ago |

  * like Monty Python and absurd humour
  * prefer dogs
  * bad at painting but likes and is good at photography
  * like science fiction movies but havent read mnay SF-books
  * know what grok means now but didnt before reading the article

Willst thou hire me?

mickt 17 years ago |

So that's it! I always suspected that having a dog ruined my programming fits and that having to walk the dog at midnight ruins my concentration and programming rhythm. I guess it's time to get a cat, or train the 65lb dog to use a litter box. ;)

zvikara 17 years ago |

"It's because programming is more like painting than engineering."

I think pg would agree.

gmercer 17 years ago |

Ok someone needs to come up with one for "how to hire a web designer". :)

huhtenberg 17 years ago |

  > VB Tech Journal
  > January 1998

Mwahahaha .. thanks, but you should've clarified that it's about hiring good VB developers.

xlnt 17 years ago |

This post is a gem if you want to hire a ruby programmer.

* like Monty Python and absurd humour * prefer dogs * bad at painting but likes and is good at photography * like science fiction movies but havent read mnay SF-books * know what grok means now but didnt before reading the article