Ask HN: You watch as someone codes. How long until you know how good they are?
And what gives it away?
5 comments
I think you can tell if they're bad pretty easily, within the first half hour or so. They won't know where to get started, or they'll start reinventing common knowledge from first principles.
I think it's very hard to tell if someone is good. One of my hobbies when I was at Google was to occasionally go read through Jeff Dean or Rob Pike's code reviews, and just look through the code they were writing. On a daily basis, it really didn't look all that much different from the average Googler's code, in either output or style. On a monthly basis, they got a lot more done, through clever re-use of other components, understanding exactly what the requirements were, and not having to go down blind alleys and re-write stuff.
I think it's very hard to tell if someone is good. One of my hobbies when I was at Google was to occasionally go read through Jeff Dean or Rob Pike's code reviews, and just look through the code they were writing. On a daily basis, it really didn't look all that much different from the average Googler's code, in either output or style. On a monthly basis, they got a lot more done, through clever re-use of other components, understanding exactly what the requirements were, and not having to go down blind alleys and re-write stuff.
I think that we really need to stop talking about the "quality" of developers without being able to quantify it. There are lots of different dimensions among which one can be a good or bad developer, and not all of them are equally important in all situations.
For example, I know several people who regularly win or get top ranks in coding competitions. However, they wouldn't be able to produce production-quality code due to a lack of experience in the industry. Are they "good" developers or not?
For example, I know several people who regularly win or get top ranks in coding competitions. However, they wouldn't be able to produce production-quality code due to a lack of experience in the industry. Are they "good" developers or not?
Are you talking about a job interview situation, or just watching someone go about their daily work?
Are you an experienced programmer who can understand what the person you're watching is doing, or are you non-technical? If you're non-technical, I don't think you could figure out very much about someone's skills just by watching them program.
Are you an experienced programmer who can understand what the person you're watching is doing, or are you non-technical? If you're non-technical, I don't think you could figure out very much about someone's skills just by watching them program.
You're technical. And watching them day to day, like if you were their (technical) manager
If I were their manager, I'd be talking to them regularly about their work and how they intended to approach their assignments. I'd probably be spending time pair programming with them if they had problems they couldn't solve on their own. I wouldn't need to try to figure out how good they were just by watching them. (I was a technical manager in my previous job.)
If I absolutely had to evaluate somebody just by watching them code, I'd use this heuristic: People who repeatedly try random solutions that don't work are probably poor programmers - they don't understand their own code, and are not in control of the process. People who spend a lot of time thinking, reading the code or tracing execution methodically in their debuggers - and then do something that quickly works - are probably good programmers. If you want to have a chance at solving difficult problems, you have to spend more time thinking and less time typing.
Also, people who spend a lot of time fighting with syntax errors are either bad programmers or don't know the language they're using very well.
If I absolutely had to evaluate somebody just by watching them code, I'd use this heuristic: People who repeatedly try random solutions that don't work are probably poor programmers - they don't understand their own code, and are not in control of the process. People who spend a lot of time thinking, reading the code or tracing execution methodically in their debuggers - and then do something that quickly works - are probably good programmers. If you want to have a chance at solving difficult problems, you have to spend more time thinking and less time typing.
Also, people who spend a lot of time fighting with syntax errors are either bad programmers or don't know the language they're using very well.
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