Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths To : comp.programming,comp.software-eng From : Ben Pfaff Date : Mon Aug 15 2005 01:31 pm rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) writes: >> From: CBFalconer >> I have heard of most of those terms, but I couldn't answer any of >> those questions. I _could_ find out in fairly short order. Yet I >> suspect I would be a worthwhile hire even for your application. > > It sounds to me more like you're trying to bluff your way into a job > for which you have no education or training or self-study or experience > or knowledge whatsoever. Among the hallmarks of a professional programmer are flexibility and the ability to learn *quickly*. A professional programmer should be able to bring himself up to speed on a new language, a new library, a new protocol or specification, or an important new concept within a matter of days or weeks. If it were me doing the hiring, I would be looking for people who can learn and adapt quickly, not people who already know the popular buzzword-of-the-week. I consult at a company one day a week. Some time ago, my boss asked me to implement a particular feature. I figured out how to do it. It would require me to modify our machine's APM and ACPI implementations in the BIOS, plus add some "backdoor" features to the chipset, as well as interface to operating system power management features. I didn't know how to do any of this. So I took a couple of days and read most of the ACPI and APM specifications, pored over Linux source code and Windows API documentation, looked at many machines' ACPI ASL code, read chipset docs from all over. And then I wrote a bunch of ACPI ASL code and x86 assembly for APM and modified the chipset appropriately, tested the whole thing to the best of my ability and wrote up a bunch of notes for QA, and put the changeset out for review. Professional programmers should be able to do all of that. > Yeah, I've heard the terms "primer" and "Polymerase Chain Reaction" nd > actually have an idea what each of them is/does, but I wouldn't try to > bluff my way into a job that required experience with real live DNA > sequencing. You would? Not similar circumstances. A professional programmer should already know all of the basics: algorithms, data structures, a few programming languages, many concepts. Applying all that to a new situation should be routine given the amount of background that he (she) has. But I wouldn't expect that same programmer to have the comparable background needed for a job in biology. -- "You know, they probably have special dorms for people like us." --American Pie .