Re: Re: Test for potential programmer

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Carlo Sogono <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Dec 3, 2:11 pm, Ranty McRanterson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Carlo Sogono <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > Thanks for all your replies.
>>
>> > I mentioned earlier that I would like to hire someone with no IT
>> > background and measure their aptitude for becoming good programmers. I
>> > suppose I need to explain what the role is exactly.
>>
>> > I work for Qantas and I'm looking to fill a systems analyst position
>> > with an aviation with an edge in law/legal stuff to learn a very high
>> > level programming language to work with aviation rules and regulations
>> > (both international and local). As you might assume, it is probably
>> > easier to hire someone with something like a law degree to learn
>> > programming....than train a computer science graduate in law!!
>>
>> Congratulations on offending around two-thirds of the list by implying
>> that their chosen speciality is so trivial any lawyer could pick it up
>> in just a few months. You can count on getting unhelpful, inflammatory
>> responses (such as this one) from the people you've offended.
>>
>> The other third won't notice, because their social skills are worse
>> than yours. Try hard not to be offended by their responses - they mean
>> as little offense as you did.
>>
>
> I think it really is impossible to understand our situation without
> giving the complete picture.
>
> I belong to a team of 4. 2 have IT backgrounds including myself and 2
> are aviation specialists. Our roles are essentially the same but given
> our backgrounds, of course the IT people would be stronger in IT while
> the aviation people will be stronger in aviation. I am one of those
> people you speak of that had to learn the busines side of the company.
> And you are also correct when you said it takes years to be a good
> software developer (not just as a programmer/coder), in the same way
> that it will take me years to fully understand the legalities related
> to aviation at the same level of my aviation colleagues.
>
> My teammate leaving has an aviation background and we are looking to
> replace him. Turning our team into a 100% IT department is not what we
> want. When the 2 aviation guys are stumped hit IT roadblocks, thats
> when me and the other IT specialist come in; and they would do the
> same when we encounter aviation/law roadblocks.

Dammit.

I meant to say that a third option would be to hire 2 people: one
programmer and one legal specialist, and give them cross-training.
This would probably get them to a stage where they can at least
communicate with each other reasonably quickly.

It sounds like this is in fact what you're doing.
>
> I am not going to budge with our decision to only hire aviation
> specialists because that is exactly what we need. Everything can be
> learned but would you really blame a law firm for hiring only law
> graduates? Would it be really right to tell them to hire IT graduates
> and train them in law in-house? This is really just the same thing.
>
> And law+IT grads isn't exactly what we're looking for. We're after
> people very speicific to aviation, that is why the role requires
> DIRECT experience with the aviation industry. The position is not a
> low level position. My only intention by sending SLUG chat an email
> was to find out how to check for aptitude for programming. Im baffled
> as to how you people have turned it into a flaming session.

This shows that, as well as having the poor social skills I mentioned,
you also haven't read this list enough. *anything* can turn into a
flame war, even before you start insulting people's professions.

The only sensible thing you can do is to ignore the flames, and pay
attention to the useful answers. DON'T FEED THE TROLL
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