Ada Skill Assessments

Ada Skill Assessments

[Joe Wisniewski]

Has there been any serious discussions of this issue as it relates
to Ada skill assessments?

(I'll answer my own question :--)  )

Among the last several "Ada clients" for which I have done work,
I am seeing, in general, a degradation of skilled Ada talent. Now,
upon closer analysis, the "actual" skills that I am seeing "lacking"
may or may not be due to one or more of the following:

     over-influx of "young talent" (Refer to previous posts on c.l.a.
     wrt "Looking for Jr. Ada people")

     general lack of engineering skills

     lack of OO training/experience

     lack of _effective_ Ada training/experience

         (I emphasize _effective_ because I am seeing many organizations
          going to these 1 or 2 day internal Ada training classes and
          claiming their engineers are now "Ada proficient".)

Since the amount of available Ada work FAR exceeds the available
skilled Ada talent, is it not now the time for ACM/SigAda or
some association of vendors/clients/headhunters related to Ada talent
to come up with an assessment.

Feasibility? Need? Want?

Thoughts?

Something to have a "Birds of a Feather" meeting in Redondo on?

Joe



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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[edabobojr]

In article <7lgb74$kob$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:
> Has there been any serious discussions of this issue as it relates
> to Ada skill assessments?
>
> (I'll answer my own question :--)  )
>
> Among the last several "Ada clients" for which I have done work,
> I am seeing, in general, a degradation of skilled Ada talent. Now,
> upon closer analysis, the "actual" skills that I am seeing "lacking"
> may or may not be due to one or more of the following:
>
>      over-influx of "young talent" (Refer to previous posts on c.l.a.
>      wrt "Looking for Jr. Ada people")
>
>      general lack of engineering skills
>
>      lack of OO training/experience
>
>      lack of _effective_ Ada training/experience
>

<snip>

I was wondering how you would recommend the "young talent" develop
their Ada skills.  After using Ada throughout college I took a position
in another language and am interested in developing my abilities to
possibly become a competent Ada programmer for later jobs.  Any input
or recommendations would be appreciated.  Thank you


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[David Botton]

Design and write code. Study quality code of others.

Perhaps even write some  code or tools for the Ada community.

Contiribute samples to the Ada Source Code Treasury on AdaPower.com

If you need more ideas, I am sure we can come up with something.

David Botton


edabobojr@yahoo.com wrote in message <7lgtt1$s28$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...

>I was wondering how you would recommend the "young talent" develop
>their Ada skills.  After using Ada throughout college I took a position
>in another language and am interested in developing my abilities to
>possibly become a competent Ada programmer for later jobs.  Any input
>or recommendations would be appreciated.  Thank you

Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[czgrr]

In article <7lgtt1$s28$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  edabobojr@yahoo.com wrote:
> I was wondering how you would recommend the "young talent" develop
> their Ada skills.  After using Ada throughout college I took a
position
> in another language and am interested in developing my abilities to
> possibly become a competent Ada programmer for later jobs.  Any input
> or recommendations would be appreciated.  Thank you

Well, I am in the opposite position right now. I have several years
experience in Ada (83), but the job I am now doing will soon require
some Visual C++ programming.

So I am teaching myself C++, subscribing to newsgroups, asking and
answering questions - this is something which we can all help you with
- and *using* it. And I am teaching myself the "Visual" bit by
developing the GUI for my current project in the ObjectAda GUI Builder,
and at the same time, implementing the same functionality in Visual C++.

So why don't you try something like that. You currently (I assume) have
your "position in another language", so get yourself an Ada compiler -
there are free ones about - and use your work projects to help you. If
you are not allowed to for copyright or security reasons, well, it can
still give you ideas.

But you will need to invest some serious personal time to do this,
unless your work sanctions you learning it there. This might be an
option if it is "for later jobs". And *use* Ada, keep pushing, keep
expanding the knowledge.

All the best with your Ada developing, and remember that we are all
here to help you. I would recommend that you *try* to solve things
first, and post your code with specific questions, rather than asking
vague, general questions which will not teach you anything if we do it
all for you.

Regards,
czgrr

--
No email, please - reply to the newsgroup.
My opinions are not necessarily those of my
employer.
Use any suggestions at your own risk.


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7lgtt1$s28$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  edabobojr@yahoo.com wrote:
> In article <7lgb74$kob$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:
> >      over-influx of "young talent" (Refer to previous posts on
c.l.a.
> >      wrt "Looking for Jr. Ada people")
> >
> >      general lack of engineering skills
> >
> >      lack of OO training/experience
> >
> >      lack of _effective_ Ada training/experience
> >
> I was wondering how you would recommend the "young talent" develop
> their Ada skills.  After using Ada throughout college I took a
position
> in another language and am interested in developing my abilities to
> possibly become a competent Ada programmer for later jobs.  Any input

Really I think the best training is on-the-job training. This needs to
include looking at how other Ada developers do things. Thus the best
course would be to do some projects in Ada. Of course, as Joe hinted,
relying on on the job training is not the most efficient course for a
company. But as an engineer I think you'll learn most quickly and deeply
that way.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

edabobojr@yahoo.com wrote
>I was wondering how you would recommend the "young talent" develop
>their Ada skills.  After using Ada throughout college I took a position
>in another language and am interested in developing my abilities to
>possibly become a competent Ada programmer for later jobs.  Any input
>or recommendations would be appreciated.  Thank you


Find something you want to do. Do it in Ada.

A suggestion:
I believe that if you did something with regards to network programming
(sockets, etc) it would be something that many may benefit from. E.g. a
customizable threaded server.

Greetings,

Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Laurent Guerby]

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"Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.no> writes:
> Find something you want to do. Do it in Ada.
> 
> A suggestion:
> I believe that if you did something with regards to network programming
> (sockets, etc) it would be something that many may benefit from. E.g. a
> customizable threaded server.

A threaded socket server is trivial to do with the AdaSockets package:
<http://www-inf.enst.fr/ANC/>

There is a windows port at:
<http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk/packages.html#ADASOCK>

Thanks to the ENST folks and Jerry van Dijk ;-)

--LG

Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7lgb74$kob$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:

> Among the last several "Ada clients" for which I have done work,
> I am seeing, in general, a degradation of skilled Ada talent. Now,
> upon closer analysis, the "actual" skills that I am seeing "lacking"
> may or may not be due to one or more of the following:

Is this situation really any different in Ada than in other "skills"? It
seems there just aren't enough engineers to go around these days...

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Joe Wisniewski]

Agreed. No difference.

Several points:
1. Got to start somewhere if we are going to start.
2. Although, it might be worthwhile, in theory, to talk about
    whether someone is "certified" in OO, I as an employer/client
    would be much more interested in whether this knowledge
    translates to "certifiability" in Ada or Smalltalk or C++ or
    Java or whatever.

   I really get the feeling out here that clients are simply
   not interested in doing real training. (OJT can take care of
   it) AND they are really getting frustrated with the job shops
   that sell Ada talent that is just not there.

   I see a lot of frustration among the higher talented Ada people out
   there that the spread of salary/rates is NOT commensurate with the
   "spread" of capabilities.

IM(ns)HO

Joe



In article <7lgccn$lc2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> In article <7lgb74$kob$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:
>
> > Among the last several "Ada clients" for which I have done work,
> > I am seeing, in general, a degradation of skilled Ada talent. Now,
> > upon closer analysis, the "actual" skills that I am seeing "lacking"
> > may or may not be due to one or more of the following:
>
> Is this situation really any different in Ada than in other "skills"?
It
> seems there just aren't enough engineers to go around these days...
>
> --
> T.E.D.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7lgdbn$lnn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:
>    I see a lot of frustration among the higher talented Ada people out
>    there that the spread of salary/rates is NOT commensurate with the
>    "spread" of capabilities.

I agree about that part personally. But from my experience as
an interviewee there are 2 main reasons for that attitude on the part of
employers:

  1)  Unless they know you already, they have no good way of
really figuring out how good (or bad) you are just from an interview.
They tend to just rely on their impression of your personality during
the interview. If you don't interview well, your offer will suffer.
Charasimatic boat-anchors who do interview well often get great offers.

That is something your proposal could go some of the way toward fixing.

  2)  Companies have a fixed salary structure that they must squeeze you
into. This structure is typically based on years of experience, not
"quality of skills". If you try to ask for more than they typically give
an engineer with your years of experience, they act like you'll start an
insurrection.

I don't see how you can do anything about that.

The only real solution I see to this for a truly frustrated engineer is
to go into the contracting market, where hourly rates supposedly do tend
to be  based on the quality of the work you can perform.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Joe Wisniewski]

In article <7lgh40$n8l$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> In article <7lgdbn$lnn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> wrote:
> >    I see a lot of frustration among the higher talented Ada people
out
> >    there that the spread of salary/rates is NOT commensurate with
the
> >    "spread" of capabilities.
>
> I agree about that part personally. But from my experience as
> an interviewee there are 2 main reasons for that attitude on the part
of
> employers:
>
>   1)  Unless they know you already, they have no good way of
> really figuring out how good (or bad) you are just from an interview.
> They tend to just rely on their impression of your personality during
> the interview. If you don't interview well, your offer will suffer.
> Charasimatic boat-anchors who do interview well often get great
offers.
>
> That is something your proposal could go some of the way toward
fixing.
>
>   2)  Companies have a fixed salary structure that they must squeeze
you
> into. This structure is typically based on years of experience, not
> "quality of skills". If you try to ask for more than they typically
give
> an engineer with your years of experience, they act like you'll start
an
> insurrection.
>
> I don't see how you can do anything about that.
>
> The only real solution I see to this for a truly frustrated engineer
is
> to go into the contracting market, where hourly rates supposedly do
tend
> to be  based on the quality of the work you can perform.
>

   Risking taking this discussion down a non-Ada path:

   Assuming
   we are talking about "contracting" instead of "consulting", it
   seems more and more clients pay at a fixed rate for ALL bodies
   that a shop places. Even the lesser-skilled individuals are in
   a position to demand and their rates are pushed higher, faster.

   But even in the cases where clients discriminate, they are not
   discriminating that much.

   I've been in situation(s) recently where contractors have gotten
   tired of surfing the web, while I'm doing a 20K line port in a
   month with OT. Difference in rate: $8-$10 hour.

   I am seeing very few clients with "rate sheets" with 5-7
   classifications of staff as in days gone past.

Joe

> --
> T.E.D.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>


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Re: Ada Skill Assessments

[Pascal Obry]

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Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> a �crit dans le message :
7lgb74$kob$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Has there been any serious discussions of this issue as it relates
> to Ada skill assessments?
>
> (I'll answer my own question :--)  )
>
> Among the last several "Ada clients" for which I have done work,
> I am seeing, in general, a degradation of skilled Ada talent. Now,
> upon closer analysis, the "actual" skills that I am seeing "lacking"
> may or may not be due to one or more of the following:
>

This could be a good sign. It could means that :

- Ada skill demand exceed Ada training

- Ada is going more and more outside of the "safety critical" field.
  There the constraints for code quality is relaxed. The good news is
  that a lot of Ada jobs are going to be proposed...

- Ada is begining to be popular and many peoples are embrassing it
  too fast without a long training.

Just some thought.

Pascal.