Re: Can Dave be cloned?

[Matt Hargett <matt () use net>]

Michael Murray wrote:
> While it may seem extreme to do that many interviews, it was worth every
> minute of it.  We also managed to strike a good mix of experienced engineers
> and more than a few of the 'potentials' that others were talking about.
>
> On the topic of potential: if I have to choose, I'll take an insatiable
> curiosity and an ability to soak up new knowledge like a sponge over formal
> a CS education any day.  You can teach somebody to code.  You can't teach
> somebody to WANT to code.

You also can't teach a "cowboy" (as I call them) to produce quality code 
consistently, in my experience. I've had decent results in pairing 
junior cowboys with senior folks, but I learned at previous companies 
not to hire someone just because that have m4d sk1llz. At least, not in 
a product development or sysadmin context; maybe in the research/exploit 
dev context, this makes more sense. (Or I'm just stupid.)

Just mentioning pair programming (or test-driven development) tends to 
be a good filter. People with no humility will have a kneejerk reaction 
just at its' mention. You can go super-fast and poop out a bunch of code 
in a weekend, wrap it up and try to sell it. Good luck with maintenance 
and support, though. Also good luck keeping cowboys interested in 
anything for more than a few months at a time.

Speed and drive doesn't necessarily mean ingenuity or being consistent. 
The latter have been more important to me lately, but that just for my 
business and projects.
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