

How to Hire a Programmer - Terhorst
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=hire.txt

======
sofal
I like cats, percussion, and certain kinds of absurd humor. Even humor as
absurd as Ren and Stimpy sometimes. I'm curious if anyone else enjoyed Ren and
Stimpy back in the day, since I've found it to be somewhat polarizing (you
either loved it or you thought it was the most disgusting crap you'd ever
seen).

~~~
Hexstream
"you either loved it or you thought it was the most disgusting crap you'd ever
seen"

Both...

------
alex_c
_Perhaps a sense of the absurd matters because so much of what developers put
up with is absurd - absurd schedules, absurd requirements, absurd hours.
Treating the absurdities of the average development process with humor makes
developers' jobs much easier._

I think it's rather that you need a good sense of logic to even notice - let
alone truly appreciate - the absurdity of certain situations.

------
pavelludiq
Im not good in programming, but i love cats, i love monthy python and the
hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy and i love music and photography. I guess
some of those stuff are just signs that you have some qualities that good
hackers have. They don't make you good, practice and hard work makes you good.
Something that's been troubling me is that my weirdness is much bigger than my
actual programming skills and i felt like i haven't earned my privilege to be
that kind of person. So I've been working on my coding skills harder lately
and i hope to earn my right to be weird and arrogant an annoying to people
that bore me, now im just some confused kid :D "attitude is no substitute for
confidence" said someone wise(don't remember where I've read it) So if you
think that you can go to an interview and act like some weirdo cat lover, you
better be able to back up your self with some mad skills :D

~~~
tokipin
don't be "weird," that's just weird. be yourself. i say this because when i
was younger, i had pride in being "weird." at some point though, i realized i
was just dicking around with what other people thought of me. it's a waste of
time and energy. though it may have been a necessary phase for me

i guess i used it as a "warning" to other people. like "hey! i'm weird! that
means if i do something awkward, it's no problem because it's expected!"

now, i am just myself, and too bad if my persona bothers people ^_^ it's a
straightforward no-bullshit type of thing. free

------
yef
VB Tech Journal? I don't know, man, this sounds like a personal friend test of
the author or something.

Have them program something in the interview. Watch them use their chosen text
editor as they work through your problem. Have them run their program and
watch them iterate through a few code/test/debug cycles. Once it's working,
ask them for a minor but logical improvement, and watch their reaction. Dread
at having to go back to the code, or gusto in making it better? How fast can
they go back and edit their own code?

For whatever job you're hiring for, have them _do the job_ as part of the
interview process.

~~~
joshuaxls
Did you notice /humor/ in the URL?

~~~
yef
Nope :) I tend to read very quickly, and since this is a topic I'm truly
interested, I guess I hoped that the author was serious. Thanks for the
callout.

~~~
joshuaxls
Welcome! I had a similar reaction, until I saw what was in the URL. I was very
pissed since I'm a dog person.

~~~
learninglisp
Man, and I was thinking I was one of the "good" programmers....

------
DanielBMarkham
For the last couple of months I've been giving a short presentation to some of
my software teams. At the end, I have a slide with "42" on it. I usually say,
"And for the answer to everything else, here it is."

Interestingly enough, the analysts don't get it, the PMs sometimes get it, but
the programmers most always get the allusion. I should start putting something
about cats in there...or perhaps parrots pining for the fjords.

------
schtog
I:

    
    
      * like Monty Python and absurd humour
      * prefer dogs
      * bad at painting but likes and is good at photography
      * like science fiction movies but havent read mnay SF-books
      * know what grok means now but didnt before reading the article
    

Willst thou hire me?

------
mickt
So that's it! I always suspected that having a dog ruined my programming fits
and that having to walk the dog at midnight ruins my concentration and
programming rhythm. I guess it's time to get a cat, or train the 65lb dog to
use a litter box. ;)

------
zvikara
"It's because programming is more like painting than engineering."

I think pg would agree.

------
gmercer
Ok someone needs to come up with one for "how to hire a web designer". :)

------
huhtenberg

      > VB Tech Journal
      > January 1998
    

Mwahahaha .. thanks, but you should've clarified that it's about hiring good
_VB_ developers.

------
xlnt
This post is a gem if you want to hire a ruby programmer.

