Re: Latest Joel article


What do you think? Specially of the OOP-bashing he does near the end.

I don't think he bashes OOP either. He just doesn't think it's a good way to separate the good from the bad programmers (and he is talking specifically about new graduates here). While he might have a point (although I think it's debatable), teaching people C is all too often to teach them bad habits. So while the good programmers will still be good, the bad ones will be worse :-) Teaching them non-procedural languages is a good thing

However, we do work in an industry where there are a vast number of untrained/badly trained people working as developers. Some of these have a talent, and will educate themselves in what I call professional skills, but many/most of them will not. Even in the Delphi world, it constantly amazes me how little is known about object orientation, for example.

I think Joel is reacting to the same problem anyone recruiting programmers has - how do you pick the good ones? It's difficult in an interview situation. It's even more difficult if you're hiring a new graduate. He likes to use pointers and recursion (possibly because they were the things he found hard?). I have tended to use more general problem solving questions when I've had to do it. And I always want to see code. But it's still a hard problem.

Cheers,
Jim Cooper

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Jim Cooper    jcooper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
              Skype : jim.cooper
Tabdee Ltd    http://www.tabdee.ltd.uk

TurboSync - Connecting Delphi to your Palm
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