[Sussex] How to tell if someone a really good programmer?

[Geoffrey Teale]

On 08/02/2008, Andrew Guard <andrew08 at andrewguard.com> wrote:
>
> So is really possible to tell who is a really good programmer. If so
> what is the tell, tell sings to look for?



Well, that depends a lot on th situation you're assessing them under.
Interview conditions are stressful and therefore a persons shyness can skew
the results, however I'd say broadly it;s very much something that can be
assessed.  What;s much harder is to say "will this person work hard and will
they fit into the team".

Generally the golden rules for me are:

   - They program outside of work and have been doing so since before they
went to Uni (or perhaps they didn't even go to University)
  - They have a non-trivial understanding of computer science (that is they
could discuss implementations of say hash tables, B-trees, and Tries without
straining too much).
  - They are aware of new developments and play with new technology as a
rule
  - They may not have commercial experience in more than one language, but
they will have programmed in 7 or 8 languages at least during their life.
  - If they think Scheme rocks and they can explain to you succinctly why
hygenic macros make it the best language in existance then you're probably
onto a winner :-)
 - If they don't think they're leat just because they use vi (we have
already established that wannabe's use vi and real programmers use emacs
:-))

.. the last ones a joke, BTW, but the wannabe point is based on some
experience of reality.



-- 
Geoff Teale
<tealeg at member.fsf.org>
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