Ask HN: How to assess programming ability? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to assess programming ability?

3 pointsjun6 comments

Hi, may I know what is a good way of assessing or measuring programming ability, especially (1) if you are a noob from a non-computing or non-programming background and; (2) have few (read: 1?) friends who code?

Also, what are good programming habits to follow based on your experience?

I've googled on these and have found more info on programming habits than on assessment though.

Should I lurk around HN or other programming forums or participate in open source projects as others have proposed here? Which forums or projects etc. would you highly recommend (as perhaps a goal to work towards, and aside from starting your own site)?

I would very much like to learn from cool people who write great code. =)

Thank you.

Same way you evaluate writing skills. Look for consistency of formatting, look for descriptive variable names. Read other sites (stackoverflow, google groups, etc.) and you will very quickly learn to tell an expert from a noob.

true... beyond a certain level however, I haven't been able to decipher yet.

To what end are you trying to assess/measure programming ability? Finding people to learn from? Evaluating people you might hire?

At this point in time, it would be to find people to learn from and also to assess my own.

find a community doing something you are interested in. get on the mailing list- see who is answering lots of questions in a fashion that suggests they know what they are talking about. see who is making the changes to source. see who has an good reputation in the community.

that is a good place to start from. maybe the community has crappy standards and the people who look good there aren't really that good but if they are better than you, you can learn and then branch out into other communities. learn learn learn.

just make sure you don't pigeon hole yourself into one community, make sure you eventually sample from a wide range of communities ( but that takes years ).

thanks.. any suggestions for communities or mailing lists?

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