From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2004-06-10T05:08:40+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Unit tests ... not just for the young

In article <200406091038.40447.sean@celsoft.com>,
Sean O'Dell <sean@celsoft.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday 09 June 2004 09:42, Tyler Zesiger wrote:
>> Sean O'Dell wrote:
>> >
>> > Ditto.  When hiring an artist, should one be wary of people who want to
>> > be an artist forever?  When hiring a gardener, should one be wary of
>> > people who want to garden forever?  I don't see the logic in refusing to
>> > hire a person because they love their work and want to keep doing it the
>> > rest of their life.
>
>> When interviewing, I would probe for deeper ambitions. Someone who is,
>> or will be, a master artist will have ambitions beyond just doing their
>> own art all day. And if they don't, I'd try to see if the could be
>> coaxed into broadening their horizons.
>>
>> For example, a master artist is the kind of guy I'd want involved in
>> arranging a movie set, or teaching, or *something* besides just churning
>> out art all day.
>>
>> Same goes for the programmer. I'd want to hire a programmer that wants
>> to do more than just programming, even if his daily duties will still
>> involve a lot of that. The best programmers have more than one area of
>> expertise. Programming is just a tool to get something done. The guy who
>> has a good understanding of biology, or accounting, or whatever, will be
>> better at programming solutions to problems in those areas.
>
>I don't agree that side-interests make for a better programmer.  If you're 
>hiring a programmer, you want someone who's main interest is programming.  My 
>experience has been that the more a person loves programming, the better they 
>are at it.  If we're discussing hiring a programmer, to do programming work, 
>I want the best programmer I can get for my money, so side-interests are one 
>of the things I DON'T want in a potential employee.

Side interests (or perhaps I should call it multi-disciplinary 
training) will certainly make for more employment opportunities going 
forward.  Most programming jobs can and will eventually be sent offshore 
(and yes, this definately sucks but there doesn't seem to be much that 
can be done before it's too late).  However, people who can program well 
AND know (biology|chemistry|geology|medicine|genetics|physics|chip 
design,etc..) will continue to be in 
demand.  Its not that you're diminishing your programming skills by 
studying another discipline, its more like you're applying your 
programming skills to that discipline (and at the same time increasing 
your programming skills).   There are many more interesting problems out 
there than just those found in IT (in fact many IT problems look quite 
mundane when compared with those that need to be solved in other fields).

Phil