On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[email protected]>wrote:
> > On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after > read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job > went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive > software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a > cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks > to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn > every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. > > Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success. > Thank you ! Laurent > > > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix > bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were > those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is > "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > > > > Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live > Pharo ! > > > > > > PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: > > > > When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only > > tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out > > of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and > > eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in > the > > way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the > > process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better > > people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve > straight > > hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued > > for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using > > to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, > cried > > the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and > > programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than > > programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a > > different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk > > environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach > > a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of > > technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met > so > > far. > > The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate > pool > > that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were > diamonds > > in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They > > were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out > > to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past > two > > weeks? we thought. > > Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries > we > > were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of > > them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. > > Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- > > ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with > diverse > > (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were > > homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out > > diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into > alien > > experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- > > ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why > it > > works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking > > for developers. > > Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are > better, but there are not many of them. > > > Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs > > > > Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ > > Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ > > Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st > > > > > > >
