I thought I would share this one if you haven't heard the news yourself.

 

 

The best part of the article for me was the graphic!

 

I am sure all of you are wondering where I get all my information from. Honestly, a lot of it has been life experiences or books but I do read stuff on the Internet from time to time

 

So, if you want to see some of the latest articles I find interesting you can subscribe to this feed as well. It should be amusing.

 

I saw this article come through the news and was compelled to share. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to have a true developer as a mentor; someone that taught me, not only how to code, but how to work with people to envision their solutions. This meant understanding budget, timelines, resources, legal aspects, technology and then delivering it! Oh my God! What? Someone that can push more then one red button! “Impossible,” you say? Nope, it is true. That is what I remember from great developers that I have met. Today we bring these people to boredom in their roles. They have no mentors, no ownership and little direction.

 

The best development shops I have worked in don’t question people on how well they know the “technology”. The first thing they want to see is how well you can communicate, how much business you understand and then if you can put puzzle pieces together. Let’s face it, 5 seconds on Google and you can pretty much find any code snippet you need. What you can’t fix is stupid (thanks Ron White)! Having an interviewee regurgitate what the stack and heap are, what polymorphic coding means or how to iterate a binary tree means little to me. I am not saying it isn’t necessary to have been through the fundamentals, but if you are smart AND willing you can pick up just about anything quickly.

 

Another importance that was slammed down my throat and I am EXTREMELY thankful for it was the need to keep reading and learning. I like to know what the person does on their spare time. If they have been in the industry for less then a few years I think it is important that he/she has pet projects. Most work environments don’t allow you the time to learn the new technologies on their bill. This is a huge fault on the business side but until they wise up a bit it is necessary to promote doing this on your own time. Don’t believe me that this is a business issue? Think Google is a good company? Then see how they feel about it. Please find the fact that they support a 20% personal work time in the second article.

 

 

Secondly, it means that there are a lot of hiring managers out there that don’t know what a good developer is, as they haven’t had a chance to meet one. Mentorship is nearly impossible to find in a corporate work environment. This leaves graduates to dive into the fire head on. We don’t promote internships in this field like we should; rather we import H1Bs that leave us high and dry whenever they can. Often making project delivery more difficult because they will leave you; an intern, for the most part, has to complete their time with you. It is just up to you to get a good one. Yes, YOU can help mold someone. Are you up to the challenge? Do you have enough of a grasp on your life to help positively affect another’s?

 

The piece of paper does have its place, I guess, but technology moves too quickly to believe that this degree has given someone much of anything in terms of coding. I would rather have a person coming out of college with a business, marketing or art major. If they are really interested in development and programming, I would love to journey down that road with them in discovery of this amazing world. Along the way, I am sure I will learn new and exciting things as well! Who knows, maybe the art major will come up with the next evolution of User Interfaces (UI) or the business major will see how ridiculous it is that someone working in Cognos or Informatica has a bill rate of $100/hr when it should be $30/hr. I would be grateful to have a great marketing major on my team to help communicate to business how amazing the application really is as they are doing coding examples on the fly in an executive meeting.

 

In the past I had my blog entries listed on my own site and supported all the development around that piece. But with all the great tools out there I thought it better that I stop recreating the wheel and just subscribe to a service. Having tried a few out I decided to use this and see where it takes me.