Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths
To   : comp.programming,comp.software-eng
From : topmind
Date : Sat Jul 16 2005 10:40 pm



Phlip wrote:
> shelley wrote:
>
> > How do you evaluate the performance (not just their CV) of a good
> > programmer? (Real question here - I find this hard to do and have made
> > mistakes) Is it good design skills, low numbers of defects (almost the
> > only measure of software quality - which can't be right), lots of code,
> > great personality... what?
>
> That list of suggestions betrays latent assumptions. Some things are
> implicitely considered impossible.
>
> Good programmers provide short & accurate estimates with a narrow spread
> between the optimism and pessimism. Then they consistently achieve these
> estimates by rapidly turning feature requests into code. Over time, the
> defect rate of this code goes down, the quality goes up, the team
> involvement goes up, the estimates become more accurate, and the time per
> feature becomes shorter.

The bottleneck is often the user/customer. They often don't really know
what they want and/or how to describe it with words. Programming
experience helps, but the user/customer requirements articulation
bottleneck is always there (except in domains that have precise,
well-known rules).

>
> Good programmers sustain and scale.
> 
> -- 
>   Phlip
>   http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand

-T-

.