[clug] Programmer Competency Matrix

[Daniel Pittman]

steve jenkin <sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au> writes:

> This is part of a larger programmer interview process:
> <http://www.starling-software.com/employment/programmer-competency-matrix.html>
>
> What do people think of this approach?  What about their sections and
> classifications?

Well, the approach is actually quite good, especially because it *does* scale
up; it is always nice to find something where you rank below the highest level
on everything.[1]

Some of the sections are a bit odd: knowing about, and having used, the range
of common DVCS solutions isn't nearly as hard as the ability to identify and
code dynamic programming solutions to problems.  (Not that it is valueless,
just not quite on the same level, I think.)


Their "code organization within a file" is a bit specific to their coding
standards; it isn't unreasonable to have a set of standards that don't expect
a license header at the top of the file, for example.

Likewise, "code readability" assumes that asserts are the preferred mechanism
for verification of assumptions, while I regard any abort in the code with
... rather a lot of suspicion about planning.  Ditto "error handling" and
having your own library to help with defensive coding, which isn't applicable
to all languages...


Otherwise, though?  I have kept hold of it and will probably use it in
future. :)

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  ...and I make no claim to being particularly impressively good to achieve
     that in a couple of the equivalent things I have seen, but rather that
     they simply don't cover a lot of ground.

-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
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