The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
By the way, the photo of a vaguely puzzled-looking grey-haired programmer is kind of ageist, don't you think?

That's not a programmer; that's the moron who conducted the "technical" interview.

graywh · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Does anyone find it amusing that the framework is called Expresso (a Portugese newspaper, among other things), but the coffee is espresso.

GeekMessage · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous Coward wrote the following post at 08-24-2006 8:07 PM:
I posed my standard C++ interview question:
Explain the difference between the C++ public, private, and protected keywords, and where their use may be appropriate.

#define private public
#define protected public

What do you mean there is a difference between private, protected, and public?

[Caution: Don't try the above "code" at work. ;-)]

R.Flowers · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

twks:
Those giant red squiggly lines under his code just won't go away. Mark must have just thought that this was a glitch in the IDE he was using.

Oh, there's the problem: I'm in Word. I wondered why it wouldn't compile!

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
By the way, the photo of a vaguely puzzled-looking grey-haired programmer is kind of ageist, don't you think?

You assume he's a programmer. Others who have replied to this have jumped right onto that bandwagon. What makes you all think he's a programmer?

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Sam:
This is an example of why "tech" interviews are almost completley worthless. I keep pushing to give people non-trivial but still small problems to solve and see what they come up with.

I used to give a test.

I even made one guy cry and leave the room. - he didn't get the job.

captcha = perfection

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

twks:
Those giant red squiggly lines under his code just won't go away. Mark must have just thought that this was a glitch in the IDE he was using.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Sam:
This is an example of why "tech" interviews are almost completley worthless. I keep pushing to give people non-trivial but still small problems to solve and see what they come up with.

Yes! Seconded!

captcha=foxtrot? The dance?

Brought up the same idea with management at my company. They shied away from the idea, saying that for legal reasons the'd have to go back and test all existing employees with the same criteria. In other words, they didn't want evidence to be shown to senior management of all the dead weight they were keeping on the payroll.

cconroy · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
By the way, the photo of a vaguely puzzled-looking grey-haired programmer is kind of ageist, don't you think?

Nah, he's actually just a 25-year-old Taylor Hicks fan. SOUL PATROL!

WIldpeaks · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Reminds of a guy I have to babysit from time to time: in the early times
we had a plugin (so an ActiveX) running in the browser showing some graphics.
We asked him a standalone version in order to get rid of the browser
dependency, which we assumed would be fairly easy as he proclaimed to be
a "C++ expert" and that we told him that just embedding the activeX
in a standalone executable would be fine as well.

Some some weeks later, he returned a plugin that not only rendered in the browser,
but was also opening a popup window rendering a second time. And got surprised
that when closing browser window, the second window was closing as well.

Somehow we didn't get surprised later on when he asked how to typecast a pointer :-)

GeekMessage · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

RogerC wrote the following post at 08-24-2006 8:26 PM:
You assume he's a programmer. Others who have replied to this have jumped right onto that bandwagon. What makes you all think he's a programmer?

He looks puzzled by that piece of hardware, so he must be a software guy.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

See, and that would be a totally acceptable response! The point in asking the question is to determine if an applicant actually knows something about the subjects they're putting forth. If their response is "I know what the protected keyword is--it's this: blah blah blah--and I don't generally use it because of blah blah", that's fine. At least it means they're aware of some of the fundamental constructs of the language they claimed to be an "expert" in, which is the point. I don't actually care if they like/dislike using "protected", but they still need to know what it is, and what it's there for.

On an unrelated note, I've never heard the above commentary used in reference to "protected", but I have heard it used in reference to the "friend" keyword.

edremy · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
twks:
Those giant red squiggly lines under his code just won't go away. Mark must have just thought that this was a glitch in the IDE he was using.

<sarcasm> What's an IDE? </sarcasm>

It's kind of like Emacs, but with a lot fewer features.

I refuse to use any editor that cannot psychoanalyze me.

snoofle · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

See, and that would be a totally acceptable response! The point in asking the question is to determine if an applicant actually knows something about the subjects they're putting forth. If their response is "I know what the protected keyword is--it's this: blah blah blah--and I don't generally use it because of blah blah", that's fine. At least it means they're aware of some of the fundamental constructs of the language they claimed to be an "expert" in, which is the point. I don't actually care if they like/dislike using "protected", but they still need to know what it is, and what it's there for.

On an unrelated note, I've never heard the above commentary used in reference to "protected", but I have heard it used in reference to the "friend" keyword.

What, exactly, would be the equivalent of a C++ friend in Java?

It's been 10+ years since I've used C++ in ernest, but I *vaguely* remember that the purpose of friend is to let another class get at what would usually be private (static?) methods in your class. I typically used them for cout-chaining.

Can anyone offer a *brief* explanation? (thx!)

Kodi · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Goat might I suggest you consider the following....

drink less caffeine
Stop taking all of this so seriously
get involved in some kind of 12 step program
BREATH

GoatCheez:
15 years experience? Looks like this person has NEVER used ANY OO programming language. Or at least he never used any OO features of any OO language before... I really hate it when stuff like this happens. People who know that they are useless as programmers should find another profession. I bet Mark had a CS degree too. I get SOOOOOOO upset when I see stuff like this. It is completely INEXCUSABLE. If Mark stays in the field, then I hope he gets hit by a train, or a stray bullet. Retarded people who hurt companies and other people because of their stupidity should not be allowed to live. People like Mark are holding back all of mankind. I cannot describe how much this scenario enfuriates me.

To people who think I am being too hard:

Mark had FIFTEEN years of experience, and experience dealing with multiple frameworks. He was then given THREE WEEKS to learn a new framework. Mark is the definition of COMPLETE AND UTTER INCOMPETENCE. Anyone who even knows OF this forum is of a higher intellect than this ass. I'd be surprised if at any company he had ever worked for he held a job longer than six months. Complete and utter crap.

What pisses me of the most is that he somehow doesn't know that he is completely incompetent when it comes to computers and programming. Sometimes people REALLY piss me off.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

kipthegreat:
Alex Papadimoulis:
Now, asking a lot of questions isn’t so bad in and of itself, but Mark kept asking the same questions, over and over and over again. And they were fairly basic questions, too

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. If you have to ask the same question more than once, try writing it down. Especially if you're new somewhere, you're going to need to take a few notes. I don't mind answering questions, but listen to my answer so that you don't have to ask again.

One of my pet peeves when I start a new job (which I've only done a few times... I tend to be a long-timer) is asking a question and getting someone who rattles very quickly thru an explanation that assumes lots of internal knowledge that I don't have. I try to take as many notes as I can (I'm regarded as somewhat weird for taking as many notes as I do) but even so, some things require asking the "same" question multiple times to get an answer that actually makes sense.

tiro · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Care to offer a helping hand to a Java-impoverished reader?

I guess that theWTFiness is the same as it would be in C++ -- there's a try/catch block insanely wrapped around some method declarations. So he probably doesn't grasp the disctinction between 'declaration' and 'code that actually gets executed'.

Right?

That's only half of it. He's trying to put executable code into an abstract class, which indicates he doesn't understand the concept of abstract classes, which means that he most likely doesn't understand pretty basic OO concepts.

By the way, the photo of a vaguely puzzled-looking grey-haired programmer is kind of ageist, don't you think?

It's a guy looking confused at a wrench, which is a very basic tool. Get it?

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

The friend keyword allows a function or class to access private variables or functions in a class.

or as a someone in a programming class put it "Only friends can touch your private parts."

I do not have enough experience to judge correctly, but all I ever used it for was a couple helper functions, such as data type conversions or io streams.

~Til

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

I know, the WTF is that he swallows exceptions.

throw Mark(outTheDoor);

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
The friend keyword allows a function or class to access private variables or functions in a class.

or as a someone in a programming class put it "Only friends can touch your private parts."

I do not have enough experience to judge correctly, but all I ever used it for was a couple helper functions, such as data type conversions or io streams.

~Til

Yep, and to answer the earlier question package scope probably the closest match in Java. For the most part it fulfills the same purpose, except for when it doesn't.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

tiro:

That's only half of it. He's trying to put executable code into an abstract class, which indicates he doesn't understand the concept of abstract classes, which means that he most likely doesn't understand pretty basic OO concepts.

I think your getting interfaces corn-fused with abstract classes. It's 100% acceptable to put code into abstract classes; provided it's valid code.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Jud:

In case you're wondering, I ignore this section of a resume because it has proven to be completely unuseful in determining qualification. In my experience, the best candidates are about 50/50 degreed. The worst come with a sheet of paper to back them up. May work at some places, but not here.

I happen to have a piece of paper, but I have to admit that it has coverd <5% of what I've done in the last 13 years since I got it.

Usually it means I can sound smart when I talk about esoteric non-real-world aspects of a project, but it doesn't make me any better equiped to gather requirements, analyze, design, code or test.

Captcha: stfu ooh, that's just rude!

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Richard Nixon:
Anonymous:

way, the photo of a vaguely puzzled-looking grey-haired programmer is kind of ageist, don't you think?

Sure, it's "ageist" if you believe that the point of the photo is that all elderly are easily confused and, in fact, simple-minded. Of course, if that's the conclusion you draw from the photo then that says more about you than anything else.

If it had been a woman in the photo, do you think it would be sexist? Or if it had been a black in the photo, do you think it would be racist?

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

What's 'a black'?

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

GoatCheez:

15 years experience? Looks like this person has NEVER used ANY OO programming language. Or at least he never used any OO features of any OO language before... I really hate it when stuff like this happens. People who know that they are useless as programmers should find another profession. I bet Mark had a CS degree too. I get SOOOOOOO upset when I see stuff like this. It is completely INEXCUSABLE. If Mark stays in the field, then I hope he gets hit by a train, or a stray bullet. Retarded people who hurt companies and other people because of their stupidity should not be allowed to live. People like Mark are holding back all of mankind. I cannot describe how much this scenario enfuriates me.

I hear ya.. BUT.. This dude is harmless. He was fired. No reason to get really upset - the people he would 'hurt' - the company - is in a position to defend itself very well.
IMHO you should concentrate your fury on the people that REALLY harm and 'hold back all mankind' and that, unfortunatley, usually are in very safe and powerful positions. And most of them are not in the computer industry, I believe.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

Shawn should get a meeting together to talk about technical interviews. If they're done sitting down with all-erbal q&a, they're a waste of time. Get to a whiteboard or sheet of paper, write out the question/start some code/draw a diagram, then point the marker/pen/stylus at the candidate and as, "what would be your first thought?" If they lean back, put their hands behind their head, and start theorizing instead of taking the instrument and getting something done, show them the door and save the next interviewer some time.

If you give a decent developer a problem which isn't massively trivial, their very first thought is "Right then, let's think about this.". Spending a few moments of thought is exactly what I'd expect any decent developer to do; the moment they immediately grab the pen/stylus/widget and writing stuff is the moment I start rating them down. Of course, after those few moments I'd expect some intelligent response to the question!

CodeReaper · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

*copies the code exactly as presented, and drops it into his current project*

HAH! It works now! I've been banging my head against this program for two weeks, trying to get it to compile!

You guys are GREAT... I get ALL my best code-snippets from here!

*hums to himself as his C# program compiles, and fails to notice the tears of pain and disgust leaking from the CD-Rom*

-----------------

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who can count in binary, and those who can't." - I dunno... probably Socrates, or somethin'.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

What if their rez specified they attended the South Harmon Institute of Technology? I would recommend a phase 2 interview, where the incumbent is allowed to visit and buy lunch for two of our programmers at a hole of our choosing.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

A long, long time ago the company I worked for hired a girl straight out of college. She said she knew Java, blah blah blah. She was tasked with doing something fairly minor in WebObjects. I had emailed her a sample bit of code for a DirectAction (think of it like a Struts action of sorts), saying she should flesh out the obvious parts. She left early one day after complaining that nothing on her machine worked. Since the project was due the next day, I figured I'd get a handle on it and do it myself if need be.

She had taken my email and inserted it into a .java file then attempted to compile it.

The email headers were included.

She was fired the next day.

Xepol · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Note to the next person I have to interview: Being able to set the time on your VCR and write scripts for an IRC product doesn't make you a programmer. Being the son of a next door neighbour of a board member gets you no consideration whatsoever.

Just ask the last guy....

Note to board member : stick to drinking and pretending you are important, quit wasting my time with the kids in your neighbourhood just because they are smarter than you.

Thank the stars above that THAT company is loooong gone, even better, that the stars that I left long before it collaspsed under its own stupidity.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Care to offer a helping hand to a Java-impoverished reader?

I guess that theWTFiness is the same as it would be in C++ -- there's a try/catch block insanely wrapped around some method declarations. So he probably doesn't grasp the disctinction between 'declaration' and 'code that actually gets executed'.

Right?

Exactly

ammoQ · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

JavaIsAWTF:

His code is just a couple of lines away from compiling.

Yeah, it's just two lines (green marks the missing lines to make it compile):

public abstract class HomePage extends BasePage
  {
<font color="#9acd32">/*</font>
  try
  {
    public abstract Integer getCount();
    public abstract void setCount(Integer int);
  } 
  catch (Exception e)
  {
    // catch (Exception e)
  }
<font color="#9acd32">*/</font>
}

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

The obvious WTF here is that the company didn't recognise his management potential and promote him.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
We just got rid of a guy here after a month and a half. Not to be age-ist, but he was 59 and typed/poked with his index fingers only. That is when he wasn't copy and pasting (he once c/p'd a 0, yeah the number). He could talk the talk if he wasn't near a computer, and you'd think he had a clue. Afterwards, he'd ask one of the other developers for help doing what you just covered how to do. An update to an existing site was estimated at 40 hours. He spent July on it. And it wasn't done, at least, not correctly/bug free. After he left, I was assigned to finish his latest task. I give you this snippet of vb code that is creating a WHERE clause in some sql.

sqlString &= "WHERE IsActive = " & 1

I stopped on this line for 5 straight minutes. Then I walked away from my desk.

Woah. I worked with this guy, too (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). He went on to do government work in missile guidance systems or somesuch.

ammoQ · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

blasterz:

Brought up the same idea with management at my company. They shied away from the idea, saying that for legal reasons the'd have to go back and test all existing employees with the same criteria.

Well, recently I've been tasked with selecting new programmers. First, I designed a test (in my case, it's just a short piece of code with a lot of syntax errors; candidates must find them). Then I had the existing staff do this test to see how much I should expect (it's rather hard to find all syntax errors in such a case). Since none of them scored extremely bad (everyone scored at least 60%), I decided to put the limit at 50%. So, even if those legal reasons existed in our country (I doubt it), I could say with confidence that all current staff members would have passed it.
I know this does not really make sure that someone is a good programmer, but it's good enough to keep away the Paulas and Marks.

Oliver Klozoff · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

twks:
Those giant red squiggly lines under his code just won't go away. Mark must have just thought that this was a glitch in the IDE he was using.

Would it really be considered a glitch, trying to write Java code in the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE?

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Care to offer a helping hand to a Java-impoverished reader?

Here's a C++ equivalent:

class HomePage: public BasePage
{
  public virtual Integer getCount();
  public virtual void setCount(Integer int);
  assert(noexception happened);
}

And then there's the fact that he doesn't handle the exception

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

ammoQ:

I know this does not really make sure that someone is a good programmer, but it's good enough to keep away the Paulas and Marks.

I'm a good programmer too. Just look at all the webpages I programmed!

mrsticks1982 · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

GoatCheez:
15 years experience? Looks like this person has NEVER used ANY OO programming language. Or at least he never used any OO features of any OO language before... I really hate it when stuff like this happens. People who know that they are useless as programmers should find another profession. I bet Mark had a CS degree too. I get SOOOOOOO upset when I see stuff like this. It is completely INEXCUSABLE. If Mark stays in the field, then I hope he gets hit by a train, or a stray bullet. Retarded people who hurt companies and other people because of their stupidity should not be allowed to live. People like Mark are holding back all of mankind. I cannot describe how much this scenario enfuriates me.

To people who think I am being too hard:

Mark had FIFTEEN years of experience, and experience dealing with multiple frameworks. He was then given THREE WEEKS to learn a new framework. Mark is the definition of COMPLETE AND UTTER INCOMPETENCE. Anyone who even knows OF this forum is of a higher intellect than this ass. I'd be surprised if at any company he had ever worked for he held a job longer than six months. Complete and utter crap.

What pisses me of the most is that he somehow doesn't know that he is completely incompetent when it comes to computers and programming. Sometimes people REALLY piss me off.

You not being hard enough on these poor folks. Before my first tech job I had to go through some training and during this me and a fellow employee helped some poor sap debug his C code, almost all the lines of it had errors. I couldn't believe this guy wanted to be a programmer. Nowadays I have less sympathy for these "kinds" of programmers because they need to get the H#!! out of the industry I am in. The sad thing is this same company would hire people who didn't even know how to pick their a$$ and pay them more than me who turned out quality products.

mrsticks1982 · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Sam:
This is an example of why "tech" interviews are almost completley worthless. I keep pushing to give people non-trivial but still small problems to solve and see what they come up with.

I used to give a test.

I even made one guy cry and leave the room. - he didn't get the job.

captcha = perfection

Too funny ... I bet he pulled the same fake crying as the lady in Gone in 60 Seconds (new version)!!

why didn't you tell me my code was wrong, somebody supos' to tell me!

Digitalbath · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
We just got rid of a guy here after a month and a half. Not to be age-ist, but he was 59 and typed/poked with his index fingers only. That is when he wasn't copy and pasting (he once c/p'd a 0, yeah the number). He could talk the talk if he wasn't near a computer, and you'd think he had a clue. Afterwards, he'd ask one of the other developers for help doing what you just covered how to do. An update to an existing site was estimated at 40 hours. He spent July on it. And it wasn't done, at least, not correctly/bug free. After he left, I was assigned to finish his latest task. I give you this snippet of vb code that is creating a WHERE clause in some sql.

sqlString &= "WHERE IsActive = " & 1

I stopped on this line for 5 straight minutes. Then I walked away from my desk.

Hahaha, way to not use a StringBuilder there. Dummy.

</sarc>muwhahahahahaha

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
15 years programming experience isn't necessarily a good thing. I wonder how many retiree's are going to find savings gone and, as a result, try to reenter the job market with nothing but their Cobol experience.

Jesus, some of you are a bunch of conceited pricks. Ignorant, too. If I had a dollar for every time I have had to listen to tell me about how [C|C++|client-server|object|Internet|XML|WEb2.0|Ajax] was different than anything that has ever gone before, well, i'd have a few bucks. If you were old enough to have been shaving for more than three years, you might realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There are always the mouth breathers who shouldn't be trusted to tie their own shoes, and the folks who read manuals in the evenings for fun and will amaze you with the breadth of their understanding if you shut up long enough to listen.

I'd much rather hire someone with brains, good work habits, an understanding of systems thinking and a desire to learn than someone who passes the test question of the language dejour. Particularly if the person has already learned and been effective in two or three platforms already. Having been through project cycles is more important. I've both learned and taught new languages in six months many times over in my career, and seen it done by other smart people. The issue isn't whether someone is a COBOL programmer, it's whether he/she is smart and a quick study.

Incidently, I came back from retirement (got bored), learned Java, perl, C# and played around a bit with Ruby and Python. Pulling down six figures, and have clients demanding that I be assigned to their projects because of my technical reputation. A lot of that is because I don't have a know it all attitude, as I'm old enough to know that I don't, a posture I suspect most of you will eventually adopt yourselves once you learn that there is more to the world than your current little playpen.

That rant ended, it's clear that the recruit described above was the result of an incompetent hiring process/manager. One has to wonder about the quality of the team that let him in the door. In my experience, good teams hire good people, and bad people are usually only hired by...

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

At my old company the higher ups, who upon seeing Mark's lack of talent at programming would have decided to give him the chance to instead "manage" the development team. If hes not a "hands on" guy, he must be management material.

Kodi · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Well said Geezer,

Many of the youngsters still havn't caught on to the story about baby bull and pappa bull ( "no son... let's wak down the hill and @#$! them all"), but then one can only become seasoned with time and practice, the arrogance tends to fade away with time... and if not I tend to fire them. The only thing more dangerous than an imcompatent programmer is a conceited know it all programmer.

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
15 years programming experience isn't necessarily a good thing. I wonder how many retiree's are going to find savings gone and, as a result, try to reenter the job market with nothing but their Cobol experience.

Jesus, some of you are a bunch of conceited pricks. Ignorant, too. If I had a dollar for every time I have had to listen to tell me about how [C|C++|client-server|object|Internet|XML|WEb2.0|Ajax] was different than anything that has ever gone before, well, i'd have a few bucks. If you were old enough to have been shaving for more than three years, you might realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There are always the mouth breathers who shouldn't be trusted to tie their own shoes, and the folks who read manuals in the evenings for fun and will amaze you with the breadth of their understanding if you shut up long enough to listen.

I'd much rather hire someone with brains, good work habits, an understanding of systems thinking and a desire to learn than someone who passes the test question of the language dejour. Particularly if the person has already learned and been effective in two or three platforms already. Having been through project cycles is more important. I've both learned and taught new languages in six months many times over in my career, and seen it done by other smart people. The issue isn't whether someone is a COBOL programmer, it's whether he/she is smart and a quick study.

Incidently, I came back from retirement (got bored), learned Java, perl, C# and played around a bit with Ruby and Python. Pulling down six figures, and have clients demanding that I be assigned to their projects because of my technical reputation. A lot of that is because I don't have a know it all attitude, as I'm old enough to know that I don't, a posture I suspect most of you will eventually adopt yourselves once you learn that there is more to the world than your current little playpen.

That rant ended, it's clear that the recruit described above was the result of an incompetent hiring process/manager. One has to wonder about the quality of the team that let him in the door. In my experience, good teams hire good people, and bad people are usually only hired by...

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

geezer coder:

Jesus, some of you are a bunch of conceited pricks.

geezer coder:

Incidently, I came back from retirement (got bored), learned Java, perl, C# and played around a bit with Ruby and Python. Pulling down six figures, and have clients demanding that I be assigned to their projects because of my technical reputation.

Hey... Pot! Nice to meet you after all this time! I'm Kettle!

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

snoofle:

It's been 10+ years since I've used C++ in ernest, but I *vaguely* remember that the purpose of friend is to let another class get at what would usually be private (static?) methods in your class. I typically used them for cout-chaining.

That's typically what friends are used for. I use them to provide easy access to an overloaded stream operator.

Sorry, don't know what the Java equivalent is. I'd tend to agree with what someone else already said and say package scope.

Captcha: clueless. Sounds like Mark, and (to some extent) the people who hired him :)

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

GeekMessage:
Anonymous Coward wrote the following post at 08-24-2006 8:07 PM:
I posed my standard C++ interview question:
Explain the difference between the C++ public, private, and protected keywords, and where their use may be appropriate.

#define private public
#define protected public

What do you mean there is a difference between private, protected, and public?

[Caution: Don't try the above "code" at work. ;-)]

Our codebase at work contains at one point the following lines:

// you didn't see this.  -pgibbons 6/5/2003
#define protected public
#include "tps_report_builder.h"
#undef protected

There's also a #define private public lurking somewhere, but I've been too scared to see what it's being used for.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
15 years programming experience isn't necessarily a good thing. I wonder how many retiree's are going to find savings gone and, as a result, try to reenter the job market with nothing but their Cobol experience.

Jesus, some of you are a bunch of conceited pricks. Ignorant, too. If I had a dollar for every time I have had to listen to tell me about how [C|C++|client-server|object|Internet|XML|WEb2.0|Ajax] was different than anything that has ever gone before, well, i'd have a few bucks. If you were old enough to have been shaving for more than three years, you might realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There are always the mouth breathers who shouldn't be trusted to tie their own shoes, and the folks who read manuals in the evenings for fun and will amaze you with the breadth of their understanding if you shut up long enough to listen.

I'd much rather hire someone with brains, good work habits, an understanding of systems thinking and a desire to learn than someone who passes the test question of the language dejour. Particularly if the person has already learned and been effective in two or three platforms already. Having been through project cycles is more important. I've both learned and taught new languages in six months many times over in my career, and seen it done by other smart people. The issue isn't whether someone is a COBOL programmer, it's whether he/she is smart and a quick study.

Incidently, I came back from retirement (got bored), learned Java, perl, C# and played around a bit with Ruby and Python. Pulling down six figures, and have clients demanding that I be assigned to their projects because of my technical reputation. A lot of that is because I don't have a know it all attitude, as I'm old enough to know that I don't, a posture I suspect most of you will eventually adopt yourselves once you learn that there is more to the world than your current little playpen.

That rant ended, it's clear that the recruit described above was the result of an incompetent hiring process/manager. One has to wonder about the quality of the team that let him in the door. In my experience, good teams hire good people, and bad people are usually only hired by...

Well to be fair I've met quite a few "geezers" that still hang onto their COBOL skills like it's the last thing on Earth that'll save them.

But this isn't a problem with "old" programmers - you see it everywhere - all those damned ColdFusion clingers, those VB clingers, who can't even be bothered to learn something new.

John Bigboote · 2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

// you didn't see this.  -pgibbons 6/5/2003

Sweet. Jedi Mind Trick comments.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Well to be fair I've met quite a few "geezers" that still hang onto their COBOL skills like it's the last thing on Earth that'll save them.

But this isn't a problem with "old" programmers - you see it everywhere - all those damned ColdFusion clingers, those VB clingers, who can't even be bothered to learn something new.

Fair enough, and it's the same as my point - there are people who learn and think, and people who don't. They come in all ages. The goal of a good hiring process is to attract and sign them.

2006-08-24 Reply Admin

See to me, as a non-professional coder, friend just utterly screws with your code "uniforminess". If you make a member private, it's private for a reason. Don't make it private then friend it so some other class can get at it.

Then again I'm a fan of private members and public accessors (C++), so perhaps I don't have a clue. It's a little more work but at least you're abstracting the class internals in case changes are needed. IM-not-professional-O.

CAPTCHA: paula, so perhaps that's a comment on my code.

The Abstract Candidate

Leave a comment on “The Abstract Candidate”