After publishing about the art of software development yesterday, a friend pointed me at Frank Wiles’ “Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality”. Assuming software development is an art, Frank Wiles very aptly outlines the reasons that in a company you should aim for talented artists only.
Maybe the best summary that describes the people you’d want to hire is Joel Spolsky’s “Smart, and Get things done.” How do you find them? Read his “Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)”
I have always had the feeling that developing software is an art. It requires creativity, vision, devotion, and, especially Hard Work. The first time I found material supporting my theory was when I read Frederick P. Brooks’ Mythical Man Month, that contains his excellent article “No Silver Bullet”. The article argues that developing software is inherently complicated; like an art, you must be talented, or at least skilled to do it.
I was triggered to write this post, because recently I received an email via the Espresso mailing list (Espresso is a software engineering research group I’m an associated member of), from Addey De Roubaix, who is completing his masters degree (at the university of Pretoria) related to Brooks’ “No Silver Bullet”. Addey took the initiative to write to a few gurus to get their views and — surprisingly — he received pleasant and courteous answers from all of them. Continue reading ‘Gurus Respond — Are We Artists?’