Subj : Re: Are programmers like this in the real world? To : comp.programming From : Jonathan Bartlett Date : Mon Jul 25 2005 01:56 pm > If I ran a company, I wouldn't let any of these people within 10 > feet of a computer. I wouldn't trust them to write "hello world". And > that includes the instructor. I'd have to agree with you. What is amazing, though, is that many of these people actually make it through some fairly difficult courses. You sometimes have to wonder what the grading criteria was for these programs, and the amount of cheating that is occurring. I've seen some complete idiots graduate from decent CS programs. There are several problems. Most of them happened in the early 90s, during the technology bubble, and noone knows how to fix them: * Management hasn't the slightest clue how to find a good programmer * The best management can do is to require something trendy * Therefore, in order to make hirable graduates, schools have to teach the trendy stuff at the expense of the real stuff * Therefore, colleges hire professors who are only skilled in the trendy stuff * People go into CS for instant money, not because they know or care anything about it * Finally, you have bad colleges teaching bad students who don't care about the subject, who are subjected to a management process that knows nothing about hiring or technology. I have honestly been turned down for a job because I didn't specifically list VB in my list of experience. To be frank, I was too embarrassed to list VB as part of my experience. The fact is, hiring a professional has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how well they know X language or Y tool. If they are a good programmer, they will be able to pick it up in a week or two or less, depending on what it is. I used to work for Wolfram Research, and they had the greatest hiring practices, because HR did not even get a resume until AFTER it had been approved by _technical_ staff. HR was ONLY responsible for salary negotiations, benefits, liability, that sort of thing. Finding qualified applicants was the role of _technical_ people. It worked great. But sadly, most hiring decisions are at least filtered through HR and/or non-technical management at most companies. They have an entrenched defeatist approach that will ultimately earn them failure at nearly everything they do. What I don't understand is this: HOW DO SUCH COMPANIES STAY IN BUSINESS?!?!?! Jon ---- Learn to program using Linux assembly language http://www.cafeshops.com/bartlettpublish.8640017 > We get an assignment. Sieve of eratosthenes-- no problem at all. > Have it working in 5 minutes, just like I'm sure anyone on this NG > could as well. Then I find out that to pretty much everyone else in > the class, it was the assignment from hell, hours of hair pulling, most > didn't finish at all. What the hell? > One of my classmates works at Microsoft. He does assembly and > works with unix. So this guy should have it together, right? Wrong. > As he describes how he spent 3 hours on the Sieve before finally > dispatching a bug, I am intrigued. What, oh what, sort of exotic bug > could so thwart such a professional coder? "Oh, well, in my for loop I > was checking i against queue.size() and of course queue.size() changed > whenever I dequeued." (Jaw hits floor. This guy makes a PAYCHECK??) > "Ahh yes.. that one will get you every time" I say politely... thinking > to myself, I wouldn't trust this guy to run Spybot for my grandma's > infected machine. > In class the instructor proclaims he will enlighten us by showing > us how to reverse the order of a singly-linked list. "So how would we > go about doing this?" he asks, that knowing gleam in his eye. I > chuckle to myself, at his and my shared secret: a couple book-keeping > variables for _next and _prev and this'll be just a routine run through > the list. Nope. "Of course, we will just push the whole entire list > onto a stack and then push it back!" That strange smell is my faith in > humanity being engulfed in the flames of hellfire. > So this has to just be because it's an intro class. It has to, I > assure myself, with some desperation. Then I head over to the CSC > computer lab. After hearing a large group of senior level CSC students > struggle for about an hour with the sublimely vexing problem of > non-blocking sockets, my earlier assurance evaporates. > > Now I think I understand better why in general programmers are > treated like shit. If these people are the bold new generation of > keyboard commandos, then I say their cheap cubicles are more than they > deserve. And no fucking wonder companies want to outsource-- if this > is the shit produced in the USA! > > So the reason I'm writing is to desperately try and get > reassurance this is not how all programmers are. Please, I beg of you, > tell me that 99% of these people will end up greeting people at Walmart > and not within 50 feet of a computer. > > Exasperated, > Nathan > .