What Sets You Apart – More Reader Responses
Christine Writes:
You asked, "Why is it so easy for developers to learn a syntax and think that is enough? Why don’t they want to really learn their craft?"
Often, that’s all that’s asked. As a technical writer, I have been discouraged from seeking and using industry best practices, and from trying to fully understand how and where our tools fits, because “you don’t need to understand the technical details.” With an underemployed spouse, rocking the boat too much could have serious costs. Also, understanding can be a booby prize. If it won’t help you work any faster, why invest time and energy in understanding? Just do the steps.
Alan Writes:
Interesting post! The guy that originally taught me how to code (who was around during the DOD’s “pioneer days” of computing) used to say that you can always teach a good analyst to code, but you can’t always teach a coder to think analytically. I’ve always considered that a good piece of wisdom.
In the scenario you’ve drawn up, it depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a team lead type who could possibly raise the standard of development in the department, the first candidate sounds like a good gamble a few weeks to learn the system and syntax and s/he’s ready to start bettering the level of design, review and quality. The second candidate might be a good choice if you’re filling a targeted need for a coder, after some “digging deeper” to learn if s/he’s really motivated to improve himself in the long term.
Dilip Writes:
There are many factors that we consider while evaluating a candidate for software development. I list below some of them:
1. The Candidate should have the ability to Identify and Define the problem.
Here, is a short narration of real situation, I faced in young age as an IT Head: One day our Managing Director asked me to get the latest Paper Shredder(no matter what the price was) to shred tons of papers he was receiving in his office. As a student of Organization & Methods(O &M) and not as an IT Head, I requested him to allow me to go through these papers.
He agreed. While going through the papers, I found that he was getting such ridiculous reports such as daily cash on hand with cashier(amount was in range of 1750.00 to 2000.00). etc.
I realized that the problem was not that of getting a paper shredder but to completely stop the people from sending such reports to MD. We shredded existing papers with hired shredder. And, the stoppage of flow of such papers to his office had tremendous effect that he had few papers to read and more time to think of future of the organization.
2. Can the Candidate find Unity in Diversity?
What do we all do in IT : Capture, Edit, Update, Calculate, Sort, Merge and Print or View. The fundamentals have not changed. Only the mannerism and utilization of information has changed.
So, is a candidate able to develop a software architecture which maintains basic backbone and yet is able to adapt to changing technologies such as newer ways of communication.
This approach helps considerably as the fundamental approach remains same; only the techniques change. What is the difference between somebody pressing a key on keyboard and pressing an icon on a touch screen or even talking to computer. All you want to do is to convey to computer to do something that you expect it to do.
3. Is Candidate is voracious reader?
Vast Amount of reading makes you look at the things from different angles and also makes you think about the problem on hand from different angles.
4. Methodical Mindedness of a Candidate
We ask the candidate to write a short code/SP etc. His manner of writing then reflects his approach towards life i.e. being able to develop in a well thought, well planned, person independent manner.
These are some of the things that is What Sets You Apart!
I have really enjoyed reading your responses. It is helpful to see things from the different perspectives. One thing I have found is that, for me, I have to put in effort to grow skills on my own time, and most often out of my own bank account. My company didn’t pay for my computer training, and any continued education they pay for is a benefit. However, if a company will not pay for continued education, that is not a reason to remain stagnant.
Writing this editorial is a key exercise I used to force myself to get out of my daily grind and think of things outside of the immediate problems I must solve. I must look for new ways of writing software and evaluate them, or at least understand them enough to provide an overview. Perhaps you may want to consider blogging for the same reason.
I have many other reader responses for which I am out of space. If you would like to share some insight for Monday, feel free to drop a note to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
Featured Article(s)
Working with Sensitive Client Issues
As business owners, we are sometimes faced with difficult client billing issues or delicate client situations. How do we handle these things with ease and confidence?
Featured White Paper(s)
All-At-Once Operations
Written by Itzik Ben-Gan with SolidQ
SQL supports a concept called all-at-onc… (read more)