Of course, I have to ask my usual question. When you say, "programming" do you mean just coding or all of the other skills and activities that are part of software development? For most software products, coding is at most 10% of the total effort and that tends to be concentrated at certain time periods. Since it rarely makes sense to hire an employee who is useful only 10% of the time, increasingly, at least in my organization, coders are short term contractors, often from outside the U.S. The questions I'd ask are:
1. How well does the person speak and write English? Alas, I'm almost monolinguistic (well, my German is pretty good), so the burden of language falls on the other person. I also note that some of the people I encounter from third world countries speak and write better English/American than some natives applying for these positions. Nevertheless, this is a primary concern. 2. Have the person tell me what they know about the application area for the software they are developing. If they don't know anything or very little, then they need a much tighter, more detailed set of specifications or they need someone, like me, to explain every thing to them. 3. Have the person show me some test plans they have written. In many software development organizations these days, testers outnumber coders. An important part of the coder's job is communicating with the test team. 4. Have the person show me a design document or functional specification they have written. 5. Have the person describe what software development processes they have participated in. Question 2 usually knocks out a lot of the candidates; by the time I get to 5, I'd be pretty much willing to take their coding skills on faith. Usually, it's obvious after a few weeks if they can hack it (so to speak) and, since these are temporary contractors anyway, it's easy to replace them. Ruven Brooks -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Blackwell Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 7:06 AM To: Polly Chase Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: evaluating programmers Polly, > I am curious about how programming ability is normally evaluated. Are > there ways to decide how deeply a person understands topics in > software development? There was a relevant paper presented at a recent PPIG workshop (the meetings associated with this mailing list). It's available online: Programming Aptitude Testing as a Prediction of Learning to Program. Markku Tukiainen & Eero M�nkk�nen, University of Joensuu, Finland http://www.ppig.org/papers/14th-tukiainen.pdf Alan -- Alan Blackwell Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/afb21/ Phone: +44 (0) 1223 334418 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
