11 Jun
2009
11 Jun
'09
9:23 a.m.
*Most* "techies" now know nothing except the
x86-32 PC and Windows.
DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs
have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They
have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and
that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use
the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks.
And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the
systems upon which we all rely.
The bit that worries me the most is the way that companies,
espeically HR departments, reinforce this. When advertising
a position, they too often post a laundry list of whatever are
the trendy buzzwords that week, and unless you've got some
certification, you won't get to someone who know what they're
looking at. Heaven forbid that they hire somebody who actually
understands the way these things work and the history behind
them. Much better to have someone who's read Pascal+#%&
(as soon as I do that, they'll use another special character to
suffix a language name...) for Dummies than someone who's
actually created languages and written compilers. All too often
they make the mistake of equating training with education.
The reality is that if we make the decision to use language
XYZ on Friday and my development team is any good, they'll
be able to arrive on Monday morning ready to code in XYZ.
And of course, I'm aware that you can't really describe in
a job posting that kind of person. But the checklist is not
the answer. Making sure the resumes are reviewed by
someone who knows what they're looking at is. I'd much
rather have 200 resumes put on my desk than to have 5
candidates vetted by HR and sent to me on the basis of
their depth of knowledge of a specific language because
they attended a 2-day training session on it.
BLS