On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck <[email protected] > wrote:
> Congrats Laurent. I hope you can succeed! Remember that business is also > part of the community. There are a lot of several companies held by guys in > our community (also using Smalltalk). You, companies, should talk and do > business together :) > Oh, we will ;) Laurent > Cheers > > Mariano > > > 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. >> >> > 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 >> > >> > >> >> >> > > > -- > Mariano > http://marianopeck.wordpress.com > >
