

Hiring the Right Programmer  - edw519
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=228097

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graywh
"If a programmer is hardwired to only use emacs or vi (for example) and could
never consider using anything else, they may also fight any efforts to do unit
testing or use version control or your build system."

If a programmer insists on using vi/vim, that may be a very good sign. I would
bet that someone that insists on using a powerful editor is the most likely to
do unit testing and use version control and probably already has/does.

Poll anyone?

~~~
wheels
I'm a reasonably hard-core XEmacs user and I'm perfectly willing to admit that
it's just stubbornness (and the fact that it's the same on all of the
platforms that I develop on). The "strength" argument hasn't been true for
some time.

I don't think it says much about me being a good or bad developer. I think the
question is more, "When is stubbornness useful"? I'm pedantic about Getting
Things Right. That works for and against me.

A lot of these sorts of blogs / essays tend to assume that good programmers
are interchangeable. They aren't. Pedantry is a good quality when doing system
architecture. It's a bad quality in consulting.

------
mpc
#7 make sure you actually have your hackers interview this person. They have a
sense for who should be hired or not, which is more valuable than any test.

~~~
Hexstream
I think that's implicit in the recommendation to test for technical skill. A
manager with zero programming experience wouldn't _dare_ trying to assess a
programmer's skill, would he?

