Chapter 9

There a lot of good
point in this that I never gave thought to. I don’t believe I will
be in a position to hire anyone for a while, but this chapter gives
some good tips on recruitment. He makes a good point in how companies
don’t get better because they are hiring the wrong people or
advertising the wrong skill set etc. In my limited experience looking
over job boards fr the CS field there does seem to be a lot of boiler
plate style templates. I also notice that they are usually looking
for x number of years experience in such and such and he is right
that the number of years is not a very good judgment tool and
experience. I have seen people which less time in a language that
know 10 times more and are that much better than people with 10 years
experience so it an uneven gauge. I also agree that companies should
be involved with the community and have seen companies that do this.
I use the web application meet up and go to presentations and talks
by various companies in the field and they are great for networking
as well as talking to potential new hires and such. It is also good
to see for the person who is looking for a job in that they get to
see what the company is all about and the people that work there.

Overall I think this
chapter was well put together and there are a good amount of tips for
the employer as well as future employees. I will probably refer back
to this chapter in the future.

Chapter 10

I like how he
described the interview as a business negotiation. I never thought of
it like that, but that is indeed what it is. The company has its
outlooks and is looking to keep up revenue and the prospective
employee that could possibly help in achieving said goals and or
challenges. His points on the hiring companies perspective is good. I
feel like that when hiring people you would want hem to ask questions
about the company. It shows interest as well as commitment to the
company in a sense because they took the time to research th place
and find out things about it so they could ask questions. There are
time though that maybe the questions they had were answered during
the interview, but still that should be stated. There are a lot of
good points, but a lot are also in my opinion common sense like
paying attention to how enthusiastic the person is when talking about
technology or their previous jobs and experience, as well as project
thy have worked on. If you have a dull unmotivated rock sitting
opposite you, you may want to end it there.

I would have never
given much thought about paying attention to what the interviewers
role in the company is, but he makes a good point about interviewers
that aren’t developers and are instead project leads or managers. I
would have never thought that might mean that developers may not be
empowered to make decisions. The single interview process is also
interesting and worth noting. It would not have dawned on me that the
company might be in a hurry and doesn’t take the time to hire the
right people. I think overall there are some great points here. I
like how he describes a good interview and I couldn’t put it better
myself. “A good interview is like a good an informal chat between
passionate developers.” I have been on interviews like this and
have been hired. They are good because both parties are at ease and
it makes it easier to be open about yourself. I agree as well about
it being a mistake to hire someone without seeing them code or their
code at least. It can give a good glimpse at their confidence and
experience as well as decision making skills and the ability to take
constructive criticism. Bringing your computer I don’t think I
would have thought of, but it is a good idea so they can see what
tools you have and use etc. Last but not least I can’t agree more
with developers must interview developers.

Overall another good
chapter with a lot of good information that I will probably revisit
in the near future.

Chapter 9

There a lot of good
point in this that I never gave thought to. I don’t believe I will
be in a position to hire anyone for a while, but this chapter gives
some good tips on recruitment. He makes a good point in how companies
don’t get better because they are hiring the wrong people or
advertising the wrong skill set etc. In my limited experience looking
over job boards fr the CS field there does seem to be a lot of boiler
plate style templates. I also notice that they are usually looking
for x number of years experience in such and such and he is right
that the number of years is not a very good judgment tool and
experience. I have seen people which less time in a language that
know 10 times more and are that much better than people with 10 years
experience so it an uneven gauge. I also agree that companies should
be involved with the community and have seen companies that do this.
I use the web application meet up and go to presentations and talks
by various companies in the field and they are great for networking
as well as talking to potential new hires and such. It is also good
to see for the person who is looking for a job in that they get to
see what the company is all about and the people that work there.

Overall I think this
chapter was well put together and there are a good amount of tips for
the employer as well as future employees. I will probably refer back
to this chapter in the future.

Chapter 10

I like how he
described the interview as a business negotiation. I never thought of
it like that, but that is indeed what it is. The company has its
outlooks and is looking to keep up revenue and the prospective
employee that could possibly help in achieving said goals and or
challenges. His points on the hiring companies perspective is good. I
feel like that when hiring people you would want hem to ask questions
about the company. It shows interest as well as commitment to the
company in a sense because they took the time to research th place
and find out things about it so they could ask questions. There are
time though that maybe the questions they had were answered during
the interview, but still that should be stated. There are a lot of
good points, but a lot are also in my opinion common sense like
paying attention to how enthusiastic the person is when talking about
technology or their previous jobs and experience, as well as project
thy have worked on. If you have a dull unmotivated rock sitting
opposite you, you may want to end it there.

I would have never
given much thought about paying attention to what the interviewers
role in the company is, but he makes a good point about interviewers
that aren’t developers and are instead project leads or managers. I
would have never thought that might mean that developers may not be
empowered to make decisions. The single interview process is also
interesting and worth noting. It would not have dawned on me that the
company might be in a hurry and doesn’t take the time to hire the
right people. I think overall there are some great points here. I
like how he describes a good interview and I couldn’t put it better
myself. “A good interview is like a good an informal chat between
passionate developers.” I have been on interviews like this and
have been hired. They are good because both parties are at ease and
it makes it easier to be open about yourself. I agree as well about
it being a mistake to hire someone without seeing them code or their
code at least. It can give a good glimpse at their confidence and
experience as well as decision making skills and the ability to take
constructive criticism. Bringing your computer I don’t think I
would have thought of, but it is a good idea so they can see what
tools you have and use etc. Last but not least I can’t agree more
with developers must interview developers.

Overall another good
chapter with a lot of good information that I will probably revisit
in the near future.

Chapter 9

There a lot of good
point in this that I never gave thought to. I don’t believe I will
be in a position to hire anyone for a while, but this chapter gives
some good tips on recruitment. He makes a good point in how companies
don’t get better because they are hiring the wrong people or
advertising the wrong skill set etc. In my limited experience looking
over job boards fr the CS field there does seem to be a lot of boiler
plate style templates. I also notice that they are usually looking
for x number of years experience in such and such and he is right
that the number of years is not a very good judgment tool and
experience. I have seen people which less time in a language that
know 10 times more and are that much better than people with 10 years
experience so it an uneven gauge. I also agree that companies should
be involved with the community and have seen companies that do this.
I use the web application meet up and go to presentations and talks
by various companies in the field and they are great for networking
as well as talking to potential new hires and such. It is also good
to see for the person who is looking for a job in that they get to
see what the company is all about and the people that work there.

Overall I think this
chapter was well put together and there are a good amount of tips for
the employer as well as future employees. I will probably refer back
to this chapter in the future.

Chapter 10

I like how he
described the interview as a business negotiation. I never thought of
it like that, but that is indeed what it is. The company has its
outlooks and is looking to keep up revenue and the prospective
employee that could possibly help in achieving said goals and or
challenges. His points on the hiring companies perspective is good. I
feel like that when hiring people you would want hem to ask questions
about the company. It shows interest as well as commitment to the
company in a sense because they took the time to research th place
and find out things about it so they could ask questions. There are
time though that maybe the questions they had were answered during
the interview, but still that should be stated. There are a lot of
good points, but a lot are also in my opinion common sense like
paying attention to how enthusiastic the person is when talking about
technology or their previous jobs and experience, as well as project
thy have worked on. If you have a dull unmotivated rock sitting
opposite you, you may want to end it there.

I would have never
given much thought about paying attention to what the interviewers
role in the company is, but he makes a good point about interviewers
that aren’t developers and are instead project leads or managers. I
would have never thought that might mean that developers may not be
empowered to make decisions. The single interview process is also
interesting and worth noting. It would not have dawned on me that the
company might be in a hurry and doesn’t take the time to hire the
right people. I think overall there are some great points here. I
like how he describes a good interview and I couldn’t put it better
myself. “A good interview is like a good an informal chat between
passionate developers.” I have been on interviews like this and
have been hired. They are good because both parties are at ease and
it makes it easier to be open about yourself. I agree as well about
it being a mistake to hire someone without seeing them code or their
code at least. It can give a good glimpse at their confidence and
experience as well as decision making skills and the ability to take
constructive criticism. Bringing your computer I don’t think I
would have thought of, but it is a good idea so they can see what
tools you have and use etc. Last but not least I can’t agree more
with developers must interview developers.

Overall another good
chapter with a lot of good information that I will probably revisit
in the near future.

Chapter 9

There a lot of good
point in this that I never gave thought to. I don’t believe I will
be in a position to hire anyone for a while, but this chapter gives
some good tips on recruitment. He makes a good point in how companies
don’t get better because they are hiring the wrong people or
advertising the wrong skill set etc. In my limited experience looking
over job boards fr the CS field there does seem to be a lot of boiler
plate style templates. I also notice that they are usually looking
for x number of years experience in such and such and he is right
that the number of years is not a very good judgment tool and
experience. I have seen people which less time in a language that
know 10 times more and are that much better than people with 10 years
experience so it an uneven gauge. I also agree that companies should
be involved with the community and have seen companies that do this.
I use the web application meet up and go to presentations and talks
by various companies in the field and they are great for networking
as well as talking to potential new hires and such. It is also good
to see for the person who is looking for a job in that they get to
see what the company is all about and the people that work there.

Overall I think this
chapter was well put together and there are a good amount of tips for
the employer as well as future employees. I will probably refer back
to this chapter in the future.

Chapter 10

I like how he
described the interview as a business negotiation. I never thought of
it like that, but that is indeed what it is. The company has its
outlooks and is looking to keep up revenue and the prospective
employee that could possibly help in achieving said goals and or
challenges. His points on the hiring companies perspective is good. I
feel like that when hiring people you would want hem to ask questions
about the company. It shows interest as well as commitment to the
company in a sense because they took the time to research th place
and find out things about it so they could ask questions. There are
time though that maybe the questions they had were answered during
the interview, but still that should be stated. There are a lot of
good points, but a lot are also in my opinion common sense like
paying attention to how enthusiastic the person is when talking about
technology or their previous jobs and experience, as well as project
thy have worked on. If you have a dull unmotivated rock sitting
opposite you, you may want to end it there.

I would have never
given much thought about paying attention to what the interviewers
role in the company is, but he makes a good point about interviewers
that aren’t developers and are instead project leads or managers. I
would have never thought that might mean that developers may not be
empowered to make decisions. The single interview process is also
interesting and worth noting. It would not have dawned on me that the
company might be in a hurry and doesn’t take the time to hire the
right people. I think overall there are some great points here. I
like how he describes a good interview and I couldn’t put it better
myself. “A good interview is like a good an informal chat between
passionate developers.” I have been on interviews like this and
have been hired. They are good because both parties are at ease and
it makes it easier to be open about yourself. I agree as well about
it being a mistake to hire someone without seeing them code or their
code at least. It can give a good glimpse at their confidence and
experience as well as decision making skills and the ability to take
constructive criticism. Bringing your computer I don’t think I
would have thought of, but it is a good idea so they can see what
tools you have and use etc. Last but not least I can’t agree more
with developers must interview developers.

Overall another good
chapter with a lot of good information that I will probably revisit
in the near future.

One of the main reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice. Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

This chapter brought back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok, scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put it into practice.

Chapter 7

One of the main
reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are
constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an
efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this
and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of
documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies
change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be
good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development
provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I
don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming
practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction
in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of
cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as
far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a
manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the
methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated
testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I
didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though
because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of
tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives
you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the
chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven
Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous
integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good
points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or
the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

Chapter 8

This chapter brought
back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te
keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am
glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think
out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a
personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be
careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might
not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job
until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I
didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want
to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get
here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding
technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a
few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an
investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of
wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok,
scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put
it into practice.

Chapter 7

One of the main
reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are
constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an
efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this
and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of
documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies
change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be
good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development
provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I
don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming
practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction
in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of
cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as
far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a
manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the
methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated
testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I
didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though
because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of
tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives
you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the
chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven
Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous
integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good
points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or
the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

Chapter 8

This chapter brought
back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te
keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am
glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think
out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a
personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be
careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might
not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job
until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I
didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want
to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get
here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding
technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a
few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an
investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of
wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok,
scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put
it into practice.

Chapter 7

One of the main
reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are
constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an
efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this
and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of
documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies
change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be
good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development
provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I
don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming
practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction
in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of
cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as
far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a
manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the
methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated
testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I
didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though
because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of
tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives
you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the
chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven
Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous
integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good
points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or
the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

Chapter 8

This chapter brought
back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te
keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am
glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think
out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a
personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be
careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might
not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job
until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I
didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want
to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get
here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding
technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a
few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an
investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of
wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok,
scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put
it into practice.

Chapter 7

One of the main
reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are
constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an
efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this
and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of
documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies
change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be
good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development
provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I
don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming
practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction
in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of
cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as
far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a
manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the
methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated
testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I
didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though
because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of
tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives
you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the
chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven
Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous
integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good
points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or
the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

Chapter 8

This chapter brought
back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te
keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am
glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think
out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a
personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be
careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might
not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job
until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I
didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want
to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get
here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding
technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a
few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an
investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of
wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok,
scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put
it into practice.

Chapter 7

One of the main
reasons to implement an Agile environment I believe is that you are
constantly reviewing and re-tooling the process to make it work in an
efficient manner. I like how he opens with something similar to this
and says something to the effect of not being tied down to a heap of
documents and diagrams that were written a century ago. Technologies
change fast today so what may have been good yesterday may not be
good today, literally. In the author’s words Agile development
provides a “quick, short feedback loop”. I understand, but I
don’t understand why all companies don’t use extreme programming
practices. He says that in one company they noticed a 1/3 reduction
in production bugs. That is amazing and saves the company a lot of
cash and it’s amazing that companies seem to value it so little as
far as the book says anyway. I like his stance on how to convince a
manager to use the practices by promoting the value of the
methodology instead of the practice of it. That is good advice.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the efficiency of automated
testing, I mean I know that is a time saver and all that, but I
didn’t realize the scale of its goodness. It does make sense though
because as he says, “as the system grows so do the number of
tests.”. Writing them before hand is a time saver and also gives
you something to code to. I am not going to go into the rest of the
chapter because it is a repeat of the Clean Coder. Test Driven
Development, Refactoring, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Continuous
integration, yada, yada, yada. I find that the book has its good
points, but it is a lot of Clean Coder and I think that either one or
the other should be read, but certainly not both in my opinion.

Chapter 8

This chapter brought
back memories of me and my good ole commodore 64 chopping away at te
keys in basic. I only wish I had stuck with it back then, but I am
glad that I got back to my roots and got back into it again. I think
out of all of the chapters I relate to this one the most, but on a
personal level. I like the Yogi Berra quote, “ You’ve got to be
careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might
not get there.” I thought I was doing what I loved at my last job
until I got hurt that is. Then I was in a whole new situation and I
didn’t like it. I am finally at the point that I know what I want
to do and am happy with the decision, but it took a while to get
here. I have been and am using a lot of his tactics. Expanding
technical knowledge, attending user groups, and networking to name a
few and they have been fantastic to me. Like he says a career is an
investment. I am glad I am a bit older and have gained a lot of
wisdom along the way so the process of changing careers has been ok,
scary in a way but ok. I am doing what I love and can’t wait to put
it into practice.