Re: C bug of the day

[kanze@gabi-soft.fr]

Wesley Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:<PricnaN_zorZxnqjXTWcqA@gbronline.com>...
> kanze@gabi-soft.fr wrote:
> > One could also argue that Ada isn't very popular or wide spread.  At
> > least, I've never been able to get a contract where I could use it.
> > And I'd really like to try it, if only to be able to speak with
> > authority one way or the other.

> And there's the problem.

> Contract uses Ada and you never have?  Don't waste time applying
> because you'll never get past the HR guy whose ony clue about Ada is
> that it's not on your r�sum�.

> Same goes for Java, C++, APL, Fortran, C#, ....

I know.  A lot depends on the market.  Around five years ago, I got a
contrat using Java, although I'd never written a line of Java code.
Around five years ago, at least here in Europe, employers were happy to
get anyone they could.

On the other hand: the people who offered me the Java job weren't dumb.
There were three technical experts present at the interview.  After two
questions, it was obvious that I knew nothing about Java.  So they
grilled me for the next two hours on design patterns, thread safety
issues, etc., etc.  And after I got the job, one of the persons at the
interview explained to me that he had seen my postings in
comp.lang.c++.moderated, and that I wouldn't even have gotten to the
interview if they hadn't felt that the postings had displayed an
attitude which would make the transition to the type of Java they wanted
easy.  And of course, the main reason I took that job, instead of the
other offers I had at the time, was that they asked the right questions
at the interview, and showed that, as a company, they knew what they
were doing.

> Your r�sum� might show that you have learned and applied ten languages
> and ten development environments in twenty years, but if you aren't
> already experienced at _their_ current fad, you're out.

Well, you don't just learn good C++ like that.  On the other hand, it's
easy to have 10 years experience in C++, and still not know how to write
good code in the language.

> I saw one ad that _required_ "two years experience in C# or one year
> each at at least two jobs."  This was when C# was less than three
> years old!

I saw a demand for 10 years experience in Java in 1997.  I also had a
friend refused an interview because the client insisted on Unix, and all
he had was Sun OS.

Unless the market's really bad, I prefer to give those companies a skip
anyway.

--
James Kanze             GABI Software             mailto:kanze@gabi-soft.fr
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