Java and Python

[Geometric Engineer]

BUMBLEBEE BUZZ:

  I found this long message by you (snipped in quoted material) to be
very interesting and to confirm suspicions from past research. I plan
to carefully ignore pieces of paper and to look for those factors you
mention, among which especially is a "lack of snotty programming ego"
(as I'd put it undiplomatically), aside from my sad prejudice against
Perl (the most damnably unmaintainable language I've seen, other than
GW-Basic laced with uncontrolled out-of-scope GOTO's).

  How has your experience been anyway with tests of any kind to bring
out actual programming ability? Do you rely mainly on "look and feel"
from the interviews? I've found generally the people who know about a
subject will be able to explain simply and clearly how to work at it,
and that the people who don't know about a subject will talk lots but
give little real information, or worse, be actively confusing.

  Muttering Engineer

Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote in message news:<3C981961.9F5E5383 at engcorp.com>...
> 
> The point is, I would never hire you or anyone _because_
> you knew Python, or Java.  I would hire you because
> I thought you were capable of learning it and using it
> effectively.  I actually tend to shy away from people 
> with great lists of "certifications" in languages because
> it suggests to me they have difficulty learning and 
> think it's a very impressive thing that they managed
> to learn enough to write an exam which tests knowledge
> of syntax but little about programming skill.
> 
> My suggestion then is to "get over" the comparison thing,
> and make sure you know both, and throw in others as you
> come across them and have opportunity to learn. This will
> make you a better programmer, because of the learning and
> generalization your brain will do, not because of the 
> specific skills you have.
> 
> Not all companies hire in this way, of course, but all
> the best ones do. :-)