Programmer Benchmarks

Wow. You miss a weekend caring for a family member and this place turns vicious. Kind of odd for a website based around *hope*.

Why not?
 

Maybe it's because they know C, and not Ruby or Python...

Heck, if we're gonna get that picky, then the best programmers were the old mainframe era guys who could toggle code directly into the machine - without a flow chart.

I apologize, I didn't mean to imply any progression to the language(s). I'm more interested in people's benchmarks. You all seem to be relatively judgmental, I can't imagine there aren't minimum criteria that you 'test' people with.

what did you expect? I was pretty clear with my first few paragraphs. Just ignore the last part, that wasn't really meant seriously; () the rest of it, however, fairly adequately argues your idea.

I apologize, I didn't mean to imply any progression to the language(s). I'm more interested in people's benchmarks. You all seem to be relatively judgmental, I can't imagine there aren't minimum criteria that you 'test' people with.

yes, but the way you've described what you want is kind of vague. I general you can learn alot about a persons abilities with a programming language (and even programming & computers in general) by just talking to them about their previous projects.

Some companies also give a "standardized" sort of test, whereby they must complete a certain programming task within a time limit; such as, in your example, the generation of prime numbers.

My main beef with your original post was your implication that a person that knows C knows every programming language; while it's true they will be able to learn the language easier, it is erroneous to state that if they cannot then perform a task in another, possibly completely foreign (and assuredly different) programming language they are deficient.

However if your original intent (which, now re-reading your posts, I believe it was) you want to basically measure the abilities of a programmer, then there aren't any "global" type of tests you can perform; experience is just as important as skill, and in fact they go hand in hand. And during the process you cannot forget personality traits, it's important that they are ready to be part of a team, I have seen several programming efforts fall apart after hiring a promising candidate who has been used to working alone.


On the other hand, outside selecting a job candidate, for example, to test oneself, there really isn't a good way to do that. You can't just take a test/benchmark or whatnot and find out how good of a programmer, overall, you are. It just doesn't work that way; how good a person is at programming is completely context sensitive.

[Web moderator]

If anybody takes a year to learn PHP, they really shouldn't be having anything to do with writing web pages.

Explain that to me.

what did you expect? I was pretty clear with my first few paragraphs. Just ignore the last part, that wasn't really meant seriously; () the rest of it, however, fairly adequately argues your idea.

That's good, I don't want to start a pissing match or flame war, but I will say benchmarking has been around long before computers to mark a standard of elevation and that successful bodybuilding is no more 'flex muscle/relax muscle' than successful programming is 'bit on/bit off'.

yes, but the way you've described what you want is kind of vague. I general you can learn alot about a persons abilities with a programming language (and even programming & computers in general) by just talking to them about their previous projects.

I understand, I had anticipated being around to be a little more interactive. And as you seem to be beginning to appreciate, it's a vague idea to begin with. What about people who have no prior projects? As a rather vague example, a fellow chemist wants to write some software to perform some elaborate calibration or optimization calculations, what kind of criteria or tests would you run down in order to tell them whether they should DIY it or buy it? I have little-to-no formal 'computer education', but I'm not uncomfortable reading and modifying code. I am uncomfortable saying others should/shouldn't.

My main beef with your original post was your implication that a person that knows C knows every programming language; while it's true they will be able to learn the language easier, it is erroneous to state that if they cannot then perform a task in another, possibly completely foreign (and assuredly different) programming language they are deficient.

Again, I didn't mean to imply anything about the language in particular, more about the programmer. As you said, someone who has learned a language will learn a language easier. Would you go so far as to say that the amount of time someone takes to learn their first language is irrelevant to their aptitude or skill?

However if your original intent (which, now re-reading your posts, I believe it was) you want to basically measure the abilities of a programmer, then there aren't any "global" type of tests you can perform; experience is just as important as skill, and in fact they go hand in hand. And during the process you cannot forget personality traits, it's important that they are ready to be part of a team, I have seen several programming efforts fall apart after hiring a promising candidate who has been used to working alone.

On the other hand, outside selecting a job candidate, for example, to test oneself, there really isn't a good way to do that. You can't just take a test/benchmark or whatnot and find out how good of a programmer, overall, you are. It just doesn't work that way; how good a person is at programming is completely context sensitive.

I understand, to a point. However, hopefully without getting too divergent, we Americans tend to go overboard with 'political correctness' hoping people really are equal and that some just have untapped potential or some spirit that will fuel them to their goals when really they should 'not quit their day job'.

There are no 'global' bodybuilding tests either, just anecdotes, rules of thumb, and some bottom-of-the-barrel ultimatums. I certainly wasn't looking for a cookie cutter template to judge others and boost my ego. More judge myself and opportunities I see for myself in addition to getting some appreciation for when someone asks me 'How'd you do that?' whether I should RTFM them, just do it for them, or somewhere in between.

Explain that to me.

Not to be too obtuse, but please explain it to me.

When, in your opinion, has someone 'learned' a language and how long should that take?

Given enough time, most anyone can learn most anything. But at some point, there has to be a minimum threshold to which to hold people. There have to be some people who should be allowed to fix code, some who should be encouraged to write it, and some who should just use completed scripts. The question is who and how to know?

Ahh, so it's not really a way of say, deciding wether a person is fit for a particular job, but rather a way to recommend an adequate course of action for one of their ideas.

If they haven't written or done anything programming before, it would probably be more cost effective to just buy it; but really, if say, they don't need it for another year or so (say it takes that long for them to get the results of their experiment to process), then it might make sense to try to teach them a little bit of a programming language.

It's really hard to judge the programming skills of a person before they actually do it; although there are a few key signs, such as how analytical they are of situations, and how good they are at problem solving and so forth.

I know a lot of people who want to be computer programmers who don't have a chance in *censored*; their minds and personalities just aren't "built" that way. Some of them are great at writing code or turning an algorithm into code, but simply cannot create the algorithm into a problem; in this case they would be great working in tandem with somebody who blows at writing code but is great at analysis of a problem and creating a workable algorithm; as I said it's really a context sensitive affair.

In your example, with the chemist, we can assume they are fairly good at both problem solving and looking at things analytically (this is usually a common trait amongst scientists); so DIY might be a viable option, but it depends on exaclt whant they need done. Also, sometimes they can "adapt" their existing software using scripts, which would both be a cheaper alternative and likely easier to learn.

Not to be too obtuse, but please explain it to me.

When, in your opinion, has someone 'learned' a language and how long should that take?

Given enough time, most anyone can learn most anything. But at some point, there has to be a minimum threshold to which to hold people. There have to be some people who should be allowed to fix code, some who should be encouraged to write it, and some who should just use completed scripts. The question is who and how to know?

I think I see what your saying; if it, for example, took somebody a year just to learn basic HTML, if they were to persue web design they are sure to face even more difficulties.

Instead of focus on "learning a programming language" perhaps it would be easier to convey as learning concepts. for example, most people can understand the concept of bytes, kilobytes, and their size relationships fairly easily; Others never seem to get it; this latter group can have no problem working with PCs, but their understanding of their function will be limited. This carries over to programming languages, of course, but I thought I'd draw an analogy from a perhaps more easily understood scenario as well.

I was going to say here, that some people don't seem to be able to program at all, but at some point it all just clicks for them, but then I realized, that that is basically what you want to find out, wether it will click for that person; unfortunately I can think of no good way to do this; if you know the person well enough, you might be able to make a guess, but I don't think there is a "test" per se that you could put them through.

[Web moderator]

Not to be too obtuse, but please explain it to me.

When, in your opinion, has someone 'learned' a language and how long should that take?

Given enough time, most anyone can learn most anything. But at some point, there has to be a minimum threshold to which to hold people. There have to be some people who should be allowed to fix code, some who should be encouraged to write it, and some who should just use completed scripts. The question is who and how to know?

Learning PHP, as your example, takes differents lengths of time for different people. Besides that, if it takes a year to learn PHP, fully, then you probably haven't learned it properly. And besides that again, no one can ever learn a language completely, usually becuase they change so often.

pissing match?
you are crazy