A Pythonic Way to Measure and Improve Your Programming Skills?

[Jeff Rush]

(inspired by a thread on the psf-members list about Python certification)

Those who know me know I am no fan of the programmer certification industry 
and I agree that your typical certificate arrangement, e.g. to show HR to get 
that box checked in your candidate file, so a company can skip responsibility 
in vetting a candidate, is un-Pythonic.  However, I do think we need a good 
answer to the engineering manager or team leader who asks, "how do I know this 
person knows Python?", and to the candidate who thinks, "I believe I'm good at 
Python but am I as good as I think?".

The first case primarily cares about the reputation of the testing facility 
within the industry, so that if they choose wrong, they are absolved of blame. 
The latter two are often honestly looking for some guidance on bringing good 
people in-house or to step-up their programming skills.

As Python use spreads, it becomes more important for the community to provide 
benchmarks for measuring skill levels, to avoid Python being relegated to the, 
respectfully, lightweight programmer category e.g. PHP or perhaps Ruby on 
Rails (not Ruby the language).

Prior to PyCon I'd been thinking about some kind of campaign, service or 
documents, that I call "So you think you know Python...".  My initial idea was 
for use by Python programmers, who are honest with themselves, to have a way 
to measure their knowledge.  We all run into or are programmers who think they 
are hot-stuff, especially those of us who work solo as many in our community 
do, but when put side-by-side against others, fall a bit short.  PyCon can 
have that effect, with so many smart people in a small area. ;-) But the 
objective isn't to denegrate these programmers but to provide a measuring 
stick, along with an educational roadmap, so they can make wise choices.

The rapid growth in use of Python is going to lead to a shortage in Python 
programmers, unless we manage the supply side as well.  The manager wanting to 
find and hire good Python programmers is not an adversary seeking to use 
certificates to commoditize our community, but an ally in helping us get 
industry respect and career opportunities using our favorite language.  We 
need to behind what he asks for to see what he needs.

I've been carefully watching Crunchy, about which a talk was given at PyCon, 
for writing tutorials that, with its "doctests" feature, could be used to 
propose tests that pass and require a candidate to write an acceptable 
program.  This week I was prototyping an "rst2crunchy" tool, that let's you 
write Crunchy scripts in reStructured Text, rather than HTML.  Crunchy needs 
more features, such as a user login facility and measurement facilities to 
store test submissions for review by experienced Python programmers after they 
pass.  From what I hear on the edu-sig list, André Roberge and Johannes 
Woolard are tackling these but could use more help.  Johannes in particular 
was a student for Google's Summer of Code 2006 and I believe is looking for 
sponsorship for 2007.

But perhaps Crunchy is not the ready answer in this case, so I'm looking for 
suggestions.

With regard to how a manager can know a person is good at Python, besides 
looking at their portfolio of work, we could stake out conceptual areas of the 
language or libraries about which a programmer should be conversant.  This 
might be a document, with example questions but carefully focused on what lies 
behind those questions, so an interviewer can come up with his own questions 
and avoid rote memorization.  This conceptual map could also eventually form 
the basis of advanced-placement in schools that goes beyond those terrible 
Visual BASIC test questions.  And for the Python programmer who wonders if his 
knowledge is broad enough and wants to improve him or herself, the conceptual 
map could have links/recommendations to training materials on specific topics.

Join me on the advocacy list and let's discuss this further.

You can join at:
   http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy

Jeff Rush
Python Advocacy Coordinator