[melbourne-pug] finding an internship

[Kevin Littlejohn]

The closest we ever got to defining what to interview for was "spark" - it's a combination of how enthusiastic someone is, how well they know their field (and note, that doesn't have to necessarily be the field they're interviewing for - I would look for someone to light up about _something_, you'd be surprised how often that didn't happen...), and how well they got on with the interviewees (social fit is crucial for most small organisations - I'd argue in some cases it's more important than actual knowledge - you can teach a programming language, you struggle to teach someone not to rub people the wrong way).

Oh, bonus points for being interested in a wide range of things - while coders that sit in a cubicle and turn out solid code are well worthwhile, people who want to take responsibility for everything around them whether it's part of their direct line of work or not are pure gold.

I pretty much gave up trying to measure actual coding ability in an interview - that's what the three month trial period after hire is for.  I've had people I was convinced a month in weren't much chop turn out by three months to be churning through work, so trying to figure that out in an interview is, I think, asking a bit much.  And again, we typically train or retrain, so there's limits on what you can work out in an interview anyway.

All IMNSHO :)

KJL

---
Kevin Littlejohn
Obsidian Consulting Group
Ph: +613 9355 6844

On 09/08/2012, at 22:17, Andreux Fort <andrew.fort at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm glad I encouraged some sane discussion :)
> 
> Yes, LOC counts are awfully poor measurements. My argument is that there is a lot of variability in ability. Brooks measured it one way, in the 1960s.
> 
> "Gets shit done" is my measure, but very hard to interview for (if I'm wrong, tell me your secrets ;).
> 
> I stand by "is smart, gets things done", as difficult as the latter (and as easy as the former) is to identify.
> 
> Noon, I agree with your measures, but ask how you interview for that.
> 
> The folks related to but not cited there are well worth a mention too (e.g. rsc, r, presotto). I've had the pleasure of working with some of them (briefly) and could not agree more.... with "less is more".
> On Aug 9, 2012 7:31 PM, "Noon Silk" <noonslists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Sam Watkins <sam at nipl.net> wrote:
> > Andreux Fort wrote:
> >> Companies want that which is hard to find: the programmer who codes 1000
> >> lines a day vs. 100 (read Brooks' "Mythical Man Month" for more).
> >
> > No, no!  Less is more!
> >
> > If I'm hiring, I would want:
> >
> > - coder can remove / compact 100 lines per day
> > - coder can finish most jobs in < 1000 lines of code (not in one day)
> > - coder can do common tasks in one line of shell script
> > - resume in roff format ;)
> 
> Hah, indeed :) And of course the claim that "getting things done" is a
> the truly best measure is, of course, trivially wrong unless you
> consider also the ongoing "cost" of "getting things done" vs "getting
> things right". But in spirit it's a useful measure; which is probably
> the way it was intended.
> 
> I'm sad to say I've never heard of "roff" format; but would you accept
> pandocs extended markdown? :)
> 
> 
> > Some examples of 'less is more' from the Plan 9 project:
> >
> > kenc - Ken Thompson's C Compilers
> >   http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/new_c_compiler.pdf
> >   http://gsoc.cat-v.org/projects/kencc/
> >
> > 9base - Plan 9 tools for Unix
> >   http://tools.suckless.org/9base
> >
> > "It also contains the Plan 9 libc, libbio, libregexp, libfmt and libutf.
> >  The overall SLOC is about 66kSLOC, so this userland + all libs is much smaller
> >  than, e.g. bash (duh!)."
> >
> > Also:
> >   http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/
> >   http://swtch.com/plan9port/
> >
> > I'm looking forward to receive the Plan 9 manuals and papers.
> > Here's where you can get some, if you like:
> >   http://www.vitanuova.com/plan9/products.html
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > melbourne-pug mailing list
> > melbourne-pug at python.org
> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
> 
> 
> --
> Noon Silk
> 
> Fancy a quantum lunch? https://sites.google.com/site/quantumlunch/
> 
> "Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy
> of being this signature."
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