James Becwar

Funny video from Reddit about programming professionally

I saw this on Redit, but the poster ripped it from youtube, so no back link… But its funny and kind of true.

If people tried to pay for other services and goods like they try to pay for programming service:

Recovering A SourceSafe Password

So I started a new job at The Greensheet.  Long story short, they couldn’t get in to their source safe database (don’t fret, we are moving to svn!) Long story short, source safe is crazzy unsecure and c6 software made a nice tool to reset the admin source safe password .

-James

How do you know when your a Senior Programmer?

I’m a software architect at Hearst Digital News.  Android is just a hobby that I do on the train rides to and from work.  It’s nice to have hobbies that make money!

Anyway, in the last few months I have interviewed 100′s of programmers for both junior developer and senior developer roles.  I have made a few observations:

• Most programmers over state there ability
• Most programmers inflate their experience/resume
• Pre-employment tests do a good job of filtering candidates
• Pre-employment tests aren’t perfect and people cheat
• People who have the skills may not have the attitude/desire/will to make it work.
• People who don’t relocate haven’t worked out well

So how do you know if you’re a junior programmer, mid-level programmer or a senior programmer?  Here is how I would define the groups:

A junior programmer knows how to write programs in at least one language.  They have limited experience to software libraries.  They tend to use debugging print statements instead of a debugger.  Their code tends to be strictly focused on functional requirements and rarely looks at  non-functional issues like testability, maintainability, performance, scalability, etc.  They tend to not use advanced features of the programming language they are using.  They also tend to believe what even a guru of their language says, even if it’s obvious that the comment doesn’t apply to their situation.  Junior programmers tend to play it safe during development, have over and under estimates and deliver untested code.  Common types of junior programmers I have seen:

• Fresh out of school with a CS degree, but no experience
• Worked in IT for years doing support, did a little programming on the side as need
• Self-taught, but no mentor and limited contexts of problems
• About 90% of programmers I have interviewed (But it is a PHP position )
• Most think of themselves as mid-level  programmers

A mid-level programmer knows several languages with at least one fluently, including its libraries.  They prefer using a debugger and unit testing.  They are excited to try new techniques.  They have several professional projects on the side.  They are aware of non-functional issues and try to code for them, but at times forget they or don’t implement it well.  Mid-level programmers will actively try to use new tools and features of their primary language.  They will also avoid pitfalls of their language.  If asked they can describe how any library functions internally, at least at a high level.   Often times if they design a solution it uses only one system.  For example they may code a loop to look at objects in code where if they did a better select on the database they could have avoided the loop. They tend to have one mentor that they stay in touch with regardless of employment.  Mid-level programmers tend to have trouble talking to business users.  They feel they can do any task assigned in their primary language.  They also rarely over estimate but tend to underestimate by quite a bit.  They also understand at a high level how every component in a computer works.  They also know about the history of computing.   They are competent to work on a task they understand alone for weeks on end.

Common type of mid-level programmers:

• CS Degree with a year of professional experience
• Self-taught with 4-5 years of varied experience
• Master/PhD degree in CS, but no real professional experience

A senior programmer is the rarest of programmers.  A senior programmer has mastered several different languages and has worked in a verity of environments.  They have several mentors.  They actively seek out ways to lower the cost of development by finding better tools, code to reuse, and better processes.  Senior programmers tend to spend a good part of their day mentoring other developers.  Senior developers tend to be active in the development community, such as going to conferences, writing, user groups, and so on.  Senior developers have uses a verity of exotic tools, such as profilers, in circuit emulators and decompiles.  They find and report bugs in the tools they are using.  At times their code is admired for its elegance.  They have also played with exotic techniques outside of their normal problem domains, such as AI, graphics, machine vision, etc.  Often they tend to code for fun, not because they have to.

Common type of senior level programmers:

• First off they aren’t common
• CS Degree with 10 years’ experience
• Self-taught with 20+ years’ experience
• Master degree with 5 years’ experience
• PhD degree with 4 years’ experience

Most senior level programmers are highly valued but they are often quickly pushed in one of two directions by the business.  If management doesn’t understand the project or if the organization is made up of mostly technical people senior programmers become team leads or project managers.  Most senior level programmers at this point get burned out or realize they are in a new field and get an mba.  On the other hand if the organization is having fundamental problems building software a senior developer will become an architect.  They will spend their days trying to figure out how to refactor a beast of a project and how to make new additions less ugly.  They will code rarely and if they don’t code on the side they will quickly loose their development chops.  I guess you could call this the programmer life cycle.

-James