NYCPHP Meetup

[Christopher R. Merlo]

On 6/28/07, David Krings <ramons at gmx.net> wrote:

While that [cleaning legacy code -CRM] is indeed a good exercise it may
> backfire and make your
> development team look chaotic and disorganized. It may also give the
> impression as if it is OK to create ugly code. You or someone on your
> team apparently did.


Just as a counter to that argument, since I'm the one whose first job was
cleaning legacy code, the someone one the team who wrote like that was long
gone before I arrived.  It was a small company, and they just didn't have
the manpower to clean up code that worked 99% of the time.  Once the code
started acting less reliably/failing more often, that's when my job was
created.

I would get some doubts if your place is really the
> best address to apply my skills. As a candidate I'd also be confused as
> to what the purpose of this exercise is. Do you expect me to go through
> thousands of lines later and clean up the mess that others left behind?


That was precisely what was expected of me.

Do these developers consider themselves to be "too good" to do work like
> that? And does this test tell you anything about how the candidate
> writes and formats code?


I don't know about the other developers.  (Why does that matter, anyway?)
And yes, giving that test to someone tells me a lot about how they write and
format code.  That's why I use similar tests in my courses, because I can't
reasonably expect someone to write an entire program in an hour, along with
multiple-choice and short-answer questions.

I was asked once to take a test during an interview. As soon as the HR
> person asked me to do that I no longer wanted that job.


That's good, because you probably wouldn't have gotten it.

Hire me because
> I work well and not because I test well.


There's only one way to tell whether a candidate will work well, and that's
to watch him work -- at the very least, to examine the results of his work.
I would never hire someone for being a nice guy, or for eloquently
explaining polymorphism.  If you're going to be a coder, I want to see your
code.

Now the questions that I was asked and that I think are pretty useless:


And why employers find them useful:

Where do you want to be in five years?


If your answer has anything to do with not working, or not living here, then
the interviewer will be fearful that you'll bolt as soon as you can.

Why did you apply for this position?


We need to make sure that this really is the job you want, that it'll be
fulfilling, and that you will still want to be here in five years.

How do you organize your workplace?


The guy you're replacing was an absolute disaster, and people hated to share
office space with him.  I sure hope you're neat.

What do you expect to get paid?


If your expectations are unrealistic, you may not be happy working here.

Generally speaking, I imagine it greatly diminishes the effectiveness of
your interview to be offended by standard interview techniques and to
respond with hostility.  Then again, I've had my job for 7 years now; maybe
I forgot what interviewing is like.
-c
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