Thursday, August 10, 2006
Skill set fandango
I came across an interesting job listing today that specifically looked for PHP developers...and nothing but. A friend said he'd throw his hat in the ring, noting his deep background in ASP 3.0. I wondered about the fit, but he maintained that he would be worth candidate, considering the spaghetti coding and mixing of code and markup. Although he couldn't tell you any PHP functions off the top of his head, he's a VBScript guru, and thought the main architectural considerations still made his talents applicable.
This is an interesting point: are quasi-related disciplines like ASP and PHP necessarily interchangable? Would you hire someone based on their implied knowledge on another platform? I've often had to turn down inquiries from ASP jocks when I need ASP.NET work done because the platforms are too disparate. And some other disciplines aren't a perfect match, but surely bleed enough over into one another to make candidates skilled in one at least considerable for a job in work requiring the other (i.e., JavaScript to ActionScript, C++ to Python, Perl to Ruby, Java to C#).
And if so, how do you gauge talent from companies that use homegrown scripting languages like Disney, or entirely new frameworks like ColdFusion, .NET, or J2EE?
This is an interesting point: are quasi-related disciplines like ASP and PHP necessarily interchangable? Would you hire someone based on their implied knowledge on another platform? I've often had to turn down inquiries from ASP jocks when I need ASP.NET work done because the platforms are too disparate. And some other disciplines aren't a perfect match, but surely bleed enough over into one another to make candidates skilled in one at least considerable for a job in work requiring the other (i.e., JavaScript to ActionScript, C++ to Python, Perl to Ruby, Java to C#).
And if so, how do you gauge talent from companies that use homegrown scripting languages like Disney, or entirely new frameworks like ColdFusion, .NET, or J2EE?
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If you take the scenario where two candidates are applying for a PHP developer position, one of them has PHP skills and the other has ASP skills (or anything else other than PHP skills) - and we assume all other aspects about them are equal or negligible - there's really nothing that would justify hiring the ASP dev is there?
In the case of your friend applying for the PHP position - unless he's THAT good in "other" things that may be relevant to the position and just head and shoulders above the rest of the PHP skills having candidates OR the same PHP skills having candidates are severely lacking just that _skills_ :) he's likely to be passed over for the candidate with the more relevant skill set.
In my opinion - you generally want to hire the person who is the "best match" - in concept seems simple - If you are looking for someone to do XYZ - you ideally want someone with experience in doing XYZ - but as we all know, we don't live in an ideal world. More often than we'd like, the ideal is not on the menu and so we improvise as needed :)
In the case of your friend applying for the PHP position - unless he's THAT good in "other" things that may be relevant to the position and just head and shoulders above the rest of the PHP skills having candidates OR the same PHP skills having candidates are severely lacking just that _skills_ :) he's likely to be passed over for the candidate with the more relevant skill set.
In my opinion - you generally want to hire the person who is the "best match" - in concept seems simple - If you are looking for someone to do XYZ - you ideally want someone with experience in doing XYZ - but as we all know, we don't live in an ideal world. More often than we'd like, the ideal is not on the menu and so we improvise as needed :)
# posted by 
: August 11, 2006 8:11 AM
: August 11, 2006 8:11 AM
Good thoughts. I used to be of the mindset that ASP is ASP is ASP, and I wouldn't tolerate anything but. But these days unless a project it's a critical one needing architect-level stuff - like a total site revamp - I've opened up to accepting more cross-disciplines. The implied benefit is they'll need to learn the idiosyncrasies of the new platform we use, but might bring something new to the table used by their foreign community that we can translate into our codebase.
(On that note, I've noticed that JSP/servlet guys have an easier time grasping ASP.NET, too.)
When you break it down, any language's API is just a series of properties/attributes, methods and events. It's the ins and outs of the framework to which it belongs and the particularities of the syntax (and possibly the environment for IDE and source control) that becomes the issue when experience helps to smooth out the learning curve.
I interviewed at ESPN.com awhile ago and they told me they use a proprietary scripting language they developed internally to traverse their design UIs and interface with their backend. I was told that since I had a background in VBScript from my Microsoft DNA days I would do alright. "Any scripting language helps," was the pitch.
(On that note, I've noticed that JSP/servlet guys have an easier time grasping ASP.NET, too.)
When you break it down, any language's API is just a series of properties/attributes, methods and events. It's the ins and outs of the framework to which it belongs and the particularities of the syntax (and possibly the environment for IDE and source control) that becomes the issue when experience helps to smooth out the learning curve.
I interviewed at ESPN.com awhile ago and they told me they use a proprietary scripting language they developed internally to traverse their design UIs and interface with their backend. I was told that since I had a background in VBScript from my Microsoft DNA days I would do alright. "Any scripting language helps," was the pitch.
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