That strikes me as very apt!! I got into programming when I did a course in the RAF in 1976 which involved a lot of data analysis for which we were provided with an HP programmable desktop calculator between 23 of us. At the same time we were being taught BASIC where we had to write out the code and test data in pencil and send it to the computer section for their girls to key in then run overnight on the mainframe. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was easier to write code to do the stats and have someone else key it all in than queue up for the calculator!
I agree that motivation is very important; I think you must be looking at why the candidate wants the job (I know you will be asking that question anyway). You should also be looking at what involvement the candidate has had with computers in the past; years ago many programmers came into the job, as I did, from somewhere else as personal computers were new but now they are ubiquitous so any candidate will have had some involvement. Regards John John Weller 01380 723235 07976 393631 > I've always heard (and believed) that to be a good programmer, you need to > be intelligent and lazy. > > Lazy enough to be willing to spend 8 hours coding something that will get you > out of 15 minutes of work, and intelligent enough to be able to make the > explanation simple enough for the computer to understand. > _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
