Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths To : comp.programming,comp.software-eng From : David Lightstone Date : Sun Jul 17 2005 01:29 pm "topmind" wrote in message news:1121575256.385642.26870@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > > 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. If they "often don't really know what they want ....", how could they possibly establish the priorities? How could they possibly determine what is top be provided in a given increment? > 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- > .