If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers | Hacker News Reader

If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers

jasonbock.net

46 pointsJtsummers12 comments

I have been out doing interviews I had one go something like this:

INTERVIEWER: I see you have been a carpenter for 15 years. Can you tell me how a hammer works?

CARPENTER: Well, you swing the hammer at a nail and the nail goes into the wood.

INTERVIEWER: Actually, when you strike the nail, an equal and opposite force is imparted on the hammer. I'm going to have to mark you down as not actually knowing how to use a hammer.

CARPENTER: I have built hundreds of beautiful houses that still stand today using hammers. Some would say I am artful with a hammer.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah... Well, we're really looking for someone who knows arcane details about hammers that don't really relate to how you use them day to day.

This article is clearly dated and irrelevant.

Rock 5.1 hasn't been used in years, its all about that PetrifiedWood 7.2

While this is funny and poses an interesting question I have one problem with this. To my limited carpentry knowledge, Walnut and Oak are much more interchangeable than something like Rails and PHP. Techniques change much more when using two different stacks than using two different types of wood.

Burled walnut vs. oak vs. pine vs. poplar is more like Oracle vs. SQL-Server vs. Postgresql vs. MySQL vs. Sqlite.

Rails vs. PHP is more like nailguns vs. rocks.

Yes, but then they go and hire a used car salesman.

I took it more like walnut/oak, codeigniter/symfony

>> walnut guru

Calling myself a "javascript rockstar" was funny when I was 20. Now it's ridiculous. Let's all grow up.

Guys seriously, what is wrong with something that most of us here would define as "art"? How can we, as programmers, let ourselves be hired by people like that, or even try to hire programmers that way? The situation only goes on because we allow it to go on.

And that "You don't use X much, so you don't WANT to use X for your work" attitude is complete bullshit, though it's a good way to spot a bad employer from the get-go (last one who did this to me kinda told me "Hey kid, sometimes you have to bow down and take jobs you don't want to take. Even if we don't even pay you minimum wage because we make profit skimming the intern's salaries". Poor guy's still posting ads asking for a programmer one year later).

The 2004 date only makes me realize I've dealt with this madness for too long.

All I can think is that my dad is a carpenter, a damn good one and extremely hardworking, and I'm sure he'd put up with this injustice in order to make more than $20/hour.

Moral of the story: we sure do complain a lot.

The scary thing is I can't decide if this is more of a critique of people who hire programmers or of the different tools (e.g. woods and hammers) that programmers use.

Moral of the story: lie.

I am not sure. Working for an employer who is not able to select correct employee (beginning with recruiters) is probably a bad idea. That's a big issue of today corporate IT: clients/managers/recruiters dont understand the product they ask the teams to build, and as such, end up recruiting only on salary and dumb-cv criteria.

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