I can't help other than say, "I feel your pain, buddy!" We have two full-time web developers here. We have tried, on a few occasions, to get some student workers to help with the mundane HTML as you did.
To sum it up, we basically had to rewrite entire applications. We found that student workers don't have the long-term commitments that employees have. Some projects we "commissioned" by students were part of grades. If the instructor would have asked us about the quality of work, we would have failed the student. We did get one good kid, Dustin, who challenged us to improve ourselves. He was a very-strict XHTML coder and made damn sure his pages validated. If they didn't, he knew exactly why and there was a good reason to make the exception. You would think that, from our highly-acclaimed computer science department, we would get at least one good student that could code half-ass HTML, but nope. We have plenty of quarter-ass coders here. We are now looking for a co-op student that will work, for an entire semester, in my web group. Hopefully, we will get someone dedicated enough to do some good work. However, I have found that many kids are disillusioned by all the flashy Flash and splashy Splash on the web, that they don't really want to code HTML. When you start talking RDBMS schemas and queries, their eyes quickly glaze over. So, I found that I tend to start in on the technical questions, when interviewing a candidate, and I can call off the interview w/o wasting too much time. M!ke -----Original Message----- From: Ray Champagne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 4:30 PM To: CF-Community Subject: ahhh....newbies So we just hired this new "kid" - he's really really green, but we need a lackeyboy to get some of the mundane html stuff done that is backing up so that the developers can concentrate on applications that we have here. Anyways, he's done a little bit of php programming, etc while keeping up some servers for his friends. He's big into the open-source thing, which is cool, but he's never held a "real" job in the IT field whatsoever. In fact, I'd be surprised if he's ever held a job anywhere - period. He just turned 21, BTW. We hired him on a hunch that he might be good for us to mold and eventually, once he gets the hang of how professional web sites are created and maintained, we'd let him try out some CF stuff. I gave him my old FastTrack to CF book from MM, he went over to his desk for about 30 minutes, then came over to me and claimed that "he knew CF and could take any projects immediately. CF was like PHP for preschoolers" exact words. Ugh. BTW, the first project I gave him was to "go through some of the html code that we've generated here, just to get an ideas of the standards we have". That took him all of 5 minutes, then he stands up and says that "he's got it, he programs EXACTLY like I do, and that made him happy". I was apprehensive, but decided to give him a site, already cut up by our designer, to code strictly in html. After 20 minutes, he hands it back to me. It was finished, but what a disaster the code was. No alt tags, no heights and widths, height attributes in percentages, heights in tr tags, had no idea what css was, much less how to use it, etc. just a mess. I ran in through the W3C validator and it failed miserably. I then pulled out the page that I had coded - the same site - and ran mine through. Guess who's was better? So, I sent him back to the drawing board with that, along with a list of standard programming practices for html sites. His excuse to me was that the GD had cut the site up wrong and that messed him up. "Would I like to have him get his GD buddy to cut up the site correctly?" - UGH! Are you frickin' kidding me? Did you realize it is just your 3RD DAY? Why can't people lay low? Would you jump into your first job and start rocking the boat like this, especially if you are that green? I really really dislike this kid already, and it is his third day! And I'm supposed to be his mentor, since I started here in the same position that he did, and the boss thought it would be good for me to teach someone. Yea, right. If you've actually kept reading this, thank for letting me vent! I was going to snap after the preschooler comment, and I needed an outlet. Second, if you've ever been in this situation before, do you have any advice? Jokes are fun and fine to hear, but I'd like some real advice if anyone has some, cause this guy is gonna drive me crazy. He's so excited to work here - he said it was his "dream job" to work in web development - that I don't really want to have him fired, I'd just like to figure out a way to direct his excitement to better the company, not have him pissing everyone off around here. Oh yea, he's really loud too. I think that's it. no wait, he smells, too. Nah, just kidding. :) Ray ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:176003 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
