11 Tips on Hiring a Rails Developer | Hacker News Reader

11 Tips on Hiring a Rails Developer

rubyinside.com

31 pointsluccastera39 comments

"A personal rails blog is required."

Not only would you be excluding 99% of the population, you'd be self selecting those who have the time to blog. If you want the best, you have to understand that they're already working. And quite possibly, too busy to blog.

I agree except in the "too busy too blog". I'd say blogging helps you be concetrated on what you are working on. While writting about it you rethink your choices etc.

It's also not that time consuming, if you are not doing it every single second that is...

It's time consuming if you prefer it to be something more than gibberish.

i guess how much time is spend depends on the nature of the blogging someone is doing and if there are any good thoughts to communicate. When someone has an audience I'm sure then don't feel it's a waste of time.

Taking a lot of time and wasting time are not the same things.

All I'm saying is that blogging can take more time than it appears on the surface.

"I'd say blogging helps you be concetrated on what you are working on."

This makes no sense to me.

Working on what you're working on helps you concentrate on what you're working on.

if the posts are related to the things you are working on, then writing about them, during a break, it could help you not get distracted in case you did something else totally irrelevant.

OK. I guess that logic works.

It's still a bad idea to associate blog-writing skill with technical and even interpersonal skill. It's also a bad idea to make too many assumptions about the reason why someone might choose not to have a blog. A guy with a family might not want to risk getting the wrong sort of attention, for example.

"Be wary of holes in proficiency. Rails developers should be fearless. Its reasonable to expect them to have a command of everything from database indices to cross-platform JavaScript. (Bonus points if they are handy in Photoshop and Illustrator.)"

-- This is pretty retarded. While most decent developers have toyed around with lots of technologies, it takes a lot of work and time to know one in depth. Anybody that claimes that knows everything:

1. Usually are jack of all trades but master of none. Basically they have mocked around with everything, but they are pretty mediocre and never had the chance to involve in a technology in great depths.

2.Are the "heroic" types, the especially young ones that have played or mocked around with certain technologies, and the "claim" they know them. This is more a naive interpratation of being familiar with a technology is the same as knowing it, and this guys are about a rude-awekening when they actually have to do something serious on their technologies they "know".

Yes, I mocked around with photoshop/firwork, but I am not a good designer, I have done some PHP work, but I am not good at it, I have designed some databases, but I am not that knowlageble person to know everything at least I admit it.

Be wary of people that don't admit they weakness, but appear to "know everything"

Apparently this article's advice is "just hire someone who is good at everything!"

I run a django shop, and my technique for hiring is finding people who preferably have had freelancer experience (know how to get something out the door), know a little (preferably a ton) of bash, actively learn new things, are up on the latest stuff (i should be able to have a conversation about js kits with them), and when i explain the advantages of django to them they show an understanding of Why it is so cool. Python or django is not 'required'.. i can ramp them up on that with lots of little tasks at first.

A big plus is being a unix nerd.

Why the emphasis on bash?

i think a sign of a good programmer is the tendency to engage with the computer using a language, not just pointing clicking and dragging. Bash familiarity tends to coincide with shell-aptitude.

This is a pretty narrow list of things to look for in a Rails developer. Isn't it more prudent to find a smart developer who has a wide range of interests? Smart developers such as that would surely be able to do the job well.

A classic UW grad - suggests that a university degree is not required, but drops in that he just happened to graduate from "Canada's highly-regarded Math/CS program at Waterloo". I suppose it is now only appropriate I say I also am graduate.

I have to agree with him that a university degree is not required - but I would still interview a UW grad above a few other candidates. My reasoning? I know much of the basic algorithm, design and other fundamentals will have a higher chance of being there than someone who is entirely self taught. University forces you to learn things that don't necessarily meet your exact interests - but that graph algorithm you didn't really enjoy but learned could come in handy next time you are writing a google maps mashup hack.

Edit: I also forgot to mention a huge indicator among my peers is pet projects. The good developers are always working on something (a lot of android apps lately), and the bad developers aren't.

I completely understand why you'd interview a UW grad above other candidates. You have to make an intial cut somewhere, right?

As a high school dropout, I hate having to compete against those with diplomas. But I guess that's what I get for dropping out.

Yes it is quite the dilemma. I know one or two people who are self taught and great coders. However, the majority of people I have worked with that are primarily self taught aren't good.

I guess the key to competing against diplomas is making separating from the herd - perhaps with pet projects, a blog showing your expertise, etc.

Or alternatively, going the startup route!

The key to competing with anybody is to show recent experience. I don't care what kinds of certificates you have -- what have you done lately?

It doesn't matter what you did last year. Programming (and startups) are all about what you can do this year.

This seems a little narrow minded. Many highly talented programmers find a lucrative area and stick with it for a while, but they can pick up on the "new big thing" almost instantly.

IMO it all comes back to talent and drive which are almost impossible to judge in an interview but they tend to swamp all other factors over time.

> IMO it all comes back to talent and drive which are almost impossible to judge in an interview but they tend to swamp all other factors over time.

I would narrow that down even further, to drive.

Plus I don't believe in talent; but one's level of skill will increase if she has the drive to improve.

#5 might counters #8

"but several of the best Rails developers I know didn't study computer science at all"

That's because Rails developers were previously PHP developers were previously "Web Designer" or "Graduate from school but interested in Web Development due to DotCom"

"First, Rails developers need their MacBook Pros and fat external screens, obviously"

I thought Ruby = type less more magics? Why would you need a fat external screens (like those 30" Mac Monitor).

The second screen is to have the api docs (and a PDF of AWDWR) open, since you won't have code-completion to remind you of the appropriate magic to type.

Not that I mind this arrangement, personally.

Komodo, Eclipse and NetBeans have the ability to code-complete don't they?

I remember when I used PyDev (Eclipse plugin for Python) and it works pretty well.

if you are a visual studio developer and want to get started with ruby and rails there is a fantastic plugin from http://www.sapphiresteel.com/

actually if your a rails developer on windows it's the best I have used. Has all the code complete and formating that you would want plus all the integration with rails that you would expect.

> previously PHP developers

A lot of people fled from Java and its verbosity, as well. Rails is really a sweet spot in the sense of using a language that doesn't feel like such a drag, yet also being fairly structured, well ordered, and with a culture that places some value on writing good code.

That's the second wave :). The first wave was pretty much PHP and web designers.

I agree Ruby is a cool language with all the features you mentioned.

While it may be true that the culture in Ruby world is to "write good code", I kind of doubt that statement in the real world. Probably only a handful of Rails developers that actually stay true to that culture. The rest just want their share of web 2.0 fame.

Sorry if I'm being skeptical. Maybe cause I saw a lot of Rails blogs that don't reflect the Ruby/Rails culture.

I don't think thats skeptical. Probably realistic. Rails is the new VB (maybe).

I'm so tired of that comparison.

Heres the difference: Rails is programmed on Ruby.

Rails in itself is, to me, not that impressive. It does a lot of things right, but it does probably just as many wrong. Not the least of which is scaling.

But the advantage that Rails has is that its programmed on top of Ruby. And for that reason it will never be truly akin to the monstrosity that was VB.

Except in that it attracts poor developers. But, thats simply because its easy. The trick is finding the people who use Rails because of Ruby... not the other way around.

I'm so tired of that rebuttal. But really, it doesn't matter. Rails is great, as long as people build great stuff in it. Too much talk is all that bugs me.

My brother said once that he wanted a t-shirt saying: "I used Ruby before Rails."

I find that with Rails especially you end up working with multiple files at once, in addition to wanting to have a rails console, and a browser visible at all times.

I actually find myself in want of a third screen fairly often.

Thanks for this. I am always wondering how far away I am from being a "real" Rails developer -- programming is a longtime hobby for me, and I love Rails and maybe would like to one day build stuff in it for a living. Number 6 on the list is especially encouraging, and numbers 4 and 5 give me some nice to-do's.

On the employee side, is it worth learning RoR just to get a job? I haven't had much luck finding a Python job.

Short-term job: maybe

Long-term job: I doubt it (small chances)

If you want to have a web-dev job, PHP should be good enough seeing that most web-consulting companies will pick either Wordpress, Wikimedia, Joomla/Mambo, and Drupal to get the job done.

RoR is the new Java so it may be useful to at least know it.

And how do we find a good rails freelancer?

From the other side of the fence: http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/how-to-get-clients-to-com...

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