testing... testing...

Since we're hiring, this topic has been on my mind lately. Can you really know the person... before you know the person? Microsoft for example is famous for putting out these little puzzles that you have to solve in your interview. Other companies take "tests" to prove your knowledge. So let's take a multiple-choice test as an example... I was thinking what one that I wrote would be like and I came up with this:

I like XML because...

1. it lets me validate what people tell me.
2. properly closed tags feel all warm and fuzzy around my neck.
3. where would flamewars be without it?
4. Big-endian down, Little-endian all the way!
5. The W3C should burn in hell.
6. X... M... ?

What comes to mind when you hear 'XSLT'?

1. To validate is glorious, but to transform is divine.
2. Velocity! Velocity! Velocity!
3. you know the movie 'Se7en'...?
4. Is that that new instruction on IBM's Power3 processor that I keep hearing about?
5. The W3C should burn in hell.
6. My cat's name is Mittens.

What do you know about Enterprise JavaBeans?

1. EJB rulez! Wooooohooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!
2. I have three words for you: nice and slow.
3. Aside from the fact that they suck?
4. I prefer tea, thank you.
5. The W3C should burn in hell.
6. I ate my crayon.

Your thoughts on Java vs .Net.

1. Windows will be the end of our species.
2. What's the difference? Windows is better anyway.
3. Linux. MacOS, maybe, if you asked nicely.
4. Anything other than HEX and Assembly is for thin-skinned freaks.
5. The W3C should burn in hell.
6. My tummy hurts.

Did you enjoy this test?

1. Very much so. I found it soothing.
2. Not really. But the pastries were good.
3. Where's the door?
4. Stop with the damn test already and get me to a keyboard!
5. The W3C should burn in hell.
   
6. What test?

programmers at work

Via Scott, a great article in Salon that touches on some of the subjects of a book he's working on. The article talks about a panel, which included:

Andy Hertzfeld, who wrote much of the original Macintosh operating system and is now chronicling that saga at Folklore.org; Jef Raskin, who created the original concept for the Macintosh; Charles Simonyi, a Xerox PARC veteran and two-decade Microsoft code guru responsible for much of today's Office suite; Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, the pioneering spreadsheet program; virtual-reality pioneer Jaron Lanier; gaming pioneer Scott Kim; and Robert Carr, father of Ashton-Tate's Framework.

The quotes are fascinating (Now if I could only just find a full transcript for the panel discussion... and I just wish Bill Joy would've been there too!). Lanier has some very interesting viewpoints, like his one-half of a manifesto that he wrote in response to Bill Joy's Why The Future Doesn't Need Us (which I mentioned in my ethics and computer science post recently), and when he says that

"Making programming fundamentally better might be the single most important challenge we face -- and the most difficult one." Today's software world is simply too "brittle" -- one tiny error and everything grinds to a halt: "We're constantly teetering on the edge of catastrophe." Nature and biological systems are much more flexible, adaptable and forgiving, and we should look to them for new answers. "The path forward is being biomimetic."

He's definitely right on target. (Making software biomimetic is something that Joy advocates too as far as I can remember). There are other great moments, such as this:

Bricklin sent waves of laughter through the auditorium by reading a passage from Lammers' interview with Bill Gates in which the young Microsoft founder explained that his work on different versions of Microsoft's BASIC compiler was shaped by looking at how other programmers had gone about the same task. Gates went on to say that young programmers don't need computer science degrees: "The best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems."

Bricklin finished reading Gates' words and announced, with an impish smile, "This is where Gates and [Richard] Stallman agree!"

LOL! Bill Gates dumpster-diving for operating system code listings!

As principal Skinner would say: Ooooh, mercy.

names, or lack thereof

James Gleick, writing in the New York Times: Get Out of My Namespace. Quote:

The world is running out of names. The roster of possible names seems almost infinite, but the demand is even greater. With the rise of instantaneous communication, business spreading across the globe and the Internet annihilating geography, conflict is rampant in this realm of language and of intellectual property. Rules are up for grabs. Laws regarding names have never been in such disarray.

Indeed. And who hasn't encountered this problem? Related to this (though more technical), the book Ruling the Root is excellent.