Mensan seeks work
George Toft
plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:27:46 -0500
Hi Doc,
I've not seen your work. I don't know you. Do not be offended
by what follows.
Here's an example of the 40+ crowd:
- An error manifests itself in the retrieval of data from the
mainframe. He picks up the PRINTOUT (you know - ink on paper)
of the code, and finds the error in about 15 minutes.
Here are some examples of the under 30 crowd:
- Write a java program that runs at 11:53pm via cron to process
the day's transactions. Unfortunately, a [well documented] bug
in the JDK (1.1.8) does not recognize Arizona's lack of Daylight
Savings shift, so six months of the year the java program thinks
it is 12:53am on the next day, and it cheefully tries to process
all of the transactions that have not yet occured. This makes me
wonder about the age of the programmer at Sun that didn't know
that Arizona is not always in the Mountain Time Zone.
- Let's retrieve the CGI query string and search it for a "?".
Guess what happens if there isn't a query string: Null Pointer
Exception. Java does not respond well to searching a null string.
This 20-something never heard of the rule: Never trust anything
another program sends you and didn't bother to add one line
of code to see if the string was null.
- Another 20-something violated a corollary of the above: Never,
under any circumstance, trust a user. We service a Spanish
speaking population. Guess what happens to LDAP when you feed it
non IA-5 data, like an "n" with a tilde. It chokes with really
geeky error message to the user. This guy never gave any thought
to the Unicode character set, either.
- An pair of almost 30-somethings wrote a program to accept data
and pad it with spaces to fill the fields to form a fixed-length
request header to a mainframe database. They assumed the User ID
field was 10 characters. The program spec was 6-20 characters.
Guess what happened when the first 11 character user ID was entered:
It shifted all of the other fields right one space and the query
blew up. I know we can figure out the faults here (not
programming to the spec, not checking the data, improper
testing).
- Yet another 20-something (with 8 years experience) had no clue
what the end of line terminator was for various operating systems.
This was a shame since he was writing code on a Unix platform
that wrote data for an NT system to process. Unix uses 0x0A and
NT/DOS uses 0x0A0D. The NT system saw only one line in the file
instead of the several hundred lines that the Unix program put in
it. I tried to discuss this with him, and he had no clue what
hexadecimal was. I had to send him references from the
introductory section of the Java documentation that explained
EOL terminators, and I had to send him hex dumps of good and bad
data.
- Another 20-something wrote a program that retrieved information
from a database. If the query returned a null (data did not
exist), or there was no connectivity to the database, the exact
same error message was displayed. When she finally connected
to the database, she kept getting the same error. Oh wait,
there's no data in the database. That only took 4 days to isolate.
It would have only taken a few hours to fix if she actually took a
few minutes to create two different error messages.
I taught networking for 4 semesters at the University of Hawaii.
The first class was always spent teaching Binary Math so they
could understand basic IP networking, like subnet masks. The
school's curriculum did not teach binary math. I had almost
100 20-somethings go through my classes learn what a bit
was, and what a bitwise AND was only because I made them.
Otherwise, they would have graduated with a CIS degree without
having ever performed any binary math.
Doc, I sincerely hope you don't do this this level of work. When
I was studying Computer Science, these pitfalls were preached in
the 100 and 200 level classes. Maybe you and I came from a really
good school, or perhaps the programmers I deal with came from
bad schools. Maybe because I'm an old fart, that my school focused
on the basics because that's all we had - OOP hadn't been invented
yet. It seems that schools now are so focused on Web and OOP
technologies that they don't have time to teach the basics like
binary math, bit operations, and data checking. Maybe that's
why the 20-something programmers at Microsoft still write code
susceptable to buffer overflows - another pitfall that was
crammed into my head in 1979.
Or maybe I just expect too much from someone who has a degree in
Computer Science (like knowing how a computer works), and I become
very disappointed when that doesn't happen.
I would like to say these are isolated incidents, but this is what
I see every week. Different problem, different programmer, same
recurring theme. I won't even go into the 24 year olds from
[over]PriceWaterhouseCoopers with "5 years experience." OK, they
count funny - I didn't know college homework assignments counted
as experience.
Even More Jaded and Searching for Some Alcohol,
George
"Dr. Ghastly" wrote:
>
> I'm Under 30. I don't consider myself clueless.
>
> ******************************************************************
> Once you start down the dark path, forever will it
> dominate your destiny, consume you it will...
> ******************************************************************
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Toft" <george@georgetoft.com>
> To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 5:49 PM
> Subject: Re: Mensan seeks work
>
> > I'm 50-50 on that issue. Last job would hire based on ability, regardless
> > of paper. Current one requires paper to set foot inside. From what I've
> > seen of programmers, if they're under 30, they're still clueless, degreed
> > or not (flame suit on).
> >
> > George
> >
> >
> >
> > "Dr. Ghastly" wrote:
> > >
> > > Not to mention that most places, my company especially, consider 2-3
> years
> > > experience equivalent to a degree.
> > >
> > > ******************************************************************
> > > Once you start down the dark path, forever will it
> > > dominate your destiny, consume you it will...
> > > ******************************************************************
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "George Toft" <george@georgetoft.com>
> > > To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> > > Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 12:11 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Mensan seeks work
> > >
> > > > I second that. We just lost a guy because he claimed to have a
> Bachelor's
> > > > Degree when he did not. It only took them a week to figure it out.
> He
> > > > was a contractor for six months, so he knew his stuff. When there is
> > > > an abundant supply of talent, you can be choosy. When there is a
> scarcity
> > > > of talent, you take whatever comes your way. You know where we are
> right
> > > now. .
> > > > .
> > > >
> > > > George
> > > >
> > > > "Dr. Ghastly" wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Uh, considering the work your looking for, I wouldn't consider
> lying.
> > > The
> > > > > company I work for does EXENSIVE background checks.
> > > > >
> > > > > ******************************************************************
> > > > > Once you start down the dark path, forever will it
> > > > > dominate your destiny, consume you it will...
> > > > > ******************************************************************
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: "Trent Shipley" <tcshipley@earthlink.net>
> > > > > To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> > > > > Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 10:14 PM
> > > > > Subject: Re: Mensan seeks work
> > > > >
> > > > > > I've seen really high numbers about lying on resumes. I suspect
> that
> > > > > people
> > > > > > usually get away with it. Of course, if you don't then it can
> really
> > > bite
> > > > > > you in the ass--especially if you claim to be an experienced
> surgeon
> > > or
> > > > > > litigator.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Actually, another alternative is to lie about your
> > > > > > > experience if you really know your stuff, but that usually comes
> > > around
> > > > > to
> > > > > > > bite you in the ass.
> > > > > > > ~M
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > ________________________________________________
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