2 Apr
2006
2 Apr
'06
11:45 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 4/3/2006 at 12:46 AM William Donzelli wrote:
You're bucking a trend. Seems like very few are in it for anything
more than the paycheck. I am always amazed at how few people even
bother to repair things, etc. "Hey, it's BROKE! What do you have
to LOSE???"
Come to think about it - asking anyone anything
about assembly in an
interview these days is pretty moot.
Yeah, I know. But I don't want to hire the kid out of school who just did
his homework for grades. I want the kid who worked outside of class
assignments purely for the fun of it. I want the kid who just can't get
enough. In short, I want another me. I believe that any
organization benefits most
from self-starters and bootleg-project fanatics, not from obedient drones
who fit neatly into the hierarchy. But then I'm a great fan of Peter
Drucker and Gerard Fairtlough.
But yeah, assembly language, keypunches and listings are from days gone
Assembly language is still used quite a lot in the embedded systems
world. Here, you figure out what you *need* to do a job -- and then
cut it in half :-( Often, that means writing in ASM because the
compilers and architectures just don't lend themselves well to
"tight code" (when your product cost is a few dollars, you don't
waste *anything*! :> )
by--and they'll not be back. But I'll bet I
can still find a way to pick
out a dedicated self-starter. I don't even care of the person taking the
gimmick test doesn't get the gimmick. But I'd cross him or her off the
list automatically if he or she didn't insist on knowing the answer.
And you'll note that I used the word "programmer", not "coder".
I prefer "software engineer" as most "programmers" are little
more than "coders". Note how few people can start a project
from a CLEAN sheet of paper (vs. how many can modify
something
that already exists)