Example. Interviewer^^ asked if I could provide four examples of software patterns and what they are used for. I cited DI as one of the software patterns, talked about it for awhile, and he said, "Well, actually the proper term for that software pattern is 'inversion of control.'"

@RobertHarvey, that sums up almost all my interviews

I wonder how much recruiters cuts have effected the stagnancy of coders wages... technical recruiting industry is far far larger than it was a year, two, four, or seven ago. I wonder if their industry hadn't grown to taking a cut from everyone, if our wages would have increased more over that period...

That a recruiter was involved was mostly the reason that a possible deal with Employer^^ was torpedoed.

@RobertHarvey haha man, people are such jerkfaces. If they can't understand the concept that other people know the same things you do with different terms, and that doesn't make it wrong, gah how stupid

semantics

All you can really say to that is "OK."

[shrug]

Interviewing and being interviewed is a skill set all its own. Most of the technical people seem to think its a contest, or they are just uncomfortable with the whole process, and if their idea of the right answer doesn't gel with yours, well.

OK.

@RobertHarvey I'm curious. How did you respond? Personally, I would have tanked the interview right then and there by challenging him/her. <-- something I know I need to work on.

@RobertHarvey the trick is to understand what hte interviewer is wasking about

@MetaFight I simply said "OK."

arghh!

@RobertHarvey do you ever mention your StackExchange presence on your CV or in interviews?

It's in my LinkedIn profile. I've got mixed feelings about my SE accounts. They don't really paint a good picture of what I know, and nobody's going to comb through my questions and answers anyway.

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/145034/… I really like the accepted answer on this question, but at <400 views it feels like I can't justify flagging for a lock...not sure what to do with it

@RobertHarvey this is one of the reasons I tend to answer all questions that are fishing like that by naming off numerous known terms for the topic; IoC, DI, "sometimes recognized as service locator or dependency inversion" etc. Just a cover-my-bases thing I do in interviews. I do it about all sorts of topics; A Q about promises I'd answer like:

"I'd use a promise for that, sometimes called a future, or deferred, and sometimes people use the term continuation though that's not quite the right name [... details about what it is and how it works and why I'd use it follow ...]

@MetaFight For awhile, I thought of interviewers who say such things, "They're testing me to see what my mettle is," but most of these folks are just trying to get through the interview process, just like I am.

@RobertHarvey I imagine a good SE account would make the best impression if the interviewer was also an SE user and understood the communities.

@MetaFight "hmmm you seem to post, all the time, and are a moderator... maybe you will be distracted during the day" ;)

@enderland true :)

Stack Exchange use during the work day saved my ass. Had I not done that during my time at NASA, I wouldn't know jack about any of the stuff we talk about in here. Most of the engineers I worked with there had no interest whatsoever in things like DI or FP.

though they'd have to spend a non-trivial amount of time looking at his profile to realize that

It's good to answer questions in interviews with very broad terms unless the interviewer seems to be trying to keep everything short, I find. Shows you understand the concept in depth rather than just as a keyword, plus ensures you're likely to cover the portion of the question they're asking about. Whenever people ask me about LINQ I clarify "Are you referring to LINQ to SQL, LINQ to collections, LINQ to XML, or?" etc

Also if you think you are torn on putting your SE profile on a resume... I am even moreso haha

Some interviewers think you're vaguely hand waving if you use broad terms because you don't know their magical keywords though, and they'll try to take you down a notch for it.

"Linq" ==> linq to collections.

@RobertHarvey not always.

Linq to SQL is Linq to SQL.

many people associate LINQ directly with LINQ to SQL though, so if you speak of only the collections when they're assuming the LINQ to SQL, they'll figure you don't know what you're talking about

I will make that assumption, since the other LINQs are evil.

the comprehension syntax has "select" right in it, this confuses many people who think the comprehension syntax is LINQ

:21788794, I shameless add my SE profile and github to my resume, got positive feedback about it

@JimmyHoffa Those are the folks that don't really understand Linq. I'm not sure it's my job as an interviewee to give them an education.

also when people ask about "dynamic" objects, I make sure to clarify with them "Do you mean anonymous objects or dynamic objects?" nine times out of ten they get them confused and will agree they meant anonymous

@André Well the majority of my reputation comes from The Workplace - this might not be the best thing, though, I guess it tells how I would interact in all the questions HR folks ask in interviews... :)

@RobertHarvey no, but you won't get the job if you answer wrong, so if you want it, it's better to clarify...

How do they know it's wrong if they don't even understand what it is?

besides, some people like you to teach them in the interview, they'll appreciate that you have helpful knowledge you're willing to share and will be more inclined to hire you...

I would like to think that is the case.

@enderland I would like to think your Workplace answers indicate "this guy will clearly not cause drama/interpersonal issues; we can focus on asking the technical questions"

@JimmyHoffa I was once intervied for a WPF job where, after I spent 5 minutes talking about decoupling the Presentation of the application from its Logic, the interviewer asked if I had ever heard of M VV M. I said "yes, of course." They said "yeah, we discovered it last week. It looks like some pretty tricky stuff, but it solved our problem." I didn't know how to react!

@RobertHarvey because they think they're the same thing but they're sure that anonymous is also what they were talking about... if they say they're not sure, I'll just explain both.

@MetaFight share in their excitement- unless you don't want the job because they are behind the curve

Oh, you're such a panderer.

@JimmyHoffa they also had their own hand-rolled bug tracker written by the CEO. I passed.

@RobertHarvey yep. Make them want me, then I get to decide if I want to work there.

@MetaFight haha yeah that would have caused me to pass as well

@Ixrec it depends on who I interact with... some folks are just difficult period

@enderland I kept editing that statement to try and capture the "well it'll probably never be his fault" angle of that

but you get the idea

@MetaFight Places like that will never listen to you when you come to the table with solutions to some of their problems. They don't think they have any.

@Ixrec it is very good for me in a situation like I'm in currently - I'm on a 100% remote team

@enderland have you tried changing channels?

...on the remote? get it? Ahhh I kill me...

...

@RobertHarvey I had high hopes for this place though. They had recently done something kind of cool. They took their best developer and gave him something like 9 months to read up, learn whatever he could, and then come back with ideas on how to improve the dev team. I chatted with him a bit. He was definitely going in the right direction. I told myself I'd revisit that company in a couple of years.

9 months is a lot of time to research that

I mean, a week with the internet should be sufficient.

these guys had plenty of money, plenty of time to kill, and were all old friends.

I think they must have sent the guy on a bunch of courses.

afk, mad max

@MetaFight obviously, sending people to training --> better employees

i'ts a formula!

I didn't say they were making the most effective use of the time :)

@MetaFight not really the best idea in my estimation; as with all things solving problems is done iteratively, if he's given 9 months of silo time he's going to come back with some stuff that works and some that doesn't, if he was given 9 one month silos with 2 weeks of implement-your-solutions-and-see-the-results between each month, at the end of 9 months he'd have a much better idea of what actually works as opposed to what theoretically works

or some variation thereof

@JimmyHoffa BUT WATERFALL

plus, most of the really big improvements require buy-in from the other devs, and possibly also some of the business managers

so they ought to at least visit you in the silo every so often

@Ixrec eff that, pour some grain in the silo once a month and see what happens

Sure, the approach might have been flawed, but the willingness of management to try something that radical out was really appealing. I had just quit a job where the dev manager was terrified of trying anything new. He had worked out that no change == no risk and no risk == long term job. It also meant the job was shit ;)

@MetaFight been there, done that. Some however might see putting devs in silos for 9 months at a time as highly risk-mitigating. He can't change shit- he's researching change, slowly, carefully, cautiously...

and there you go. The above comment is why I don't give my friends my SE account name.

I've learned over the years to waste time for a while after I solve problems because if I go to most bosses I've had and say "Yep, got the solution here, just do this." after a day or two they presume I clearly screwed up because it was too little time and don't believe me. If I write the solution down and come to them with it 2 or 3 weeks later however...clearly I was careful and cautious and so they're willing to believe me. Lots in this industry just can't tolerate change at a certain pace.

@psr :/ you're not missing much unless the idea of working with people who still think LINQ which came out 7 years ago is brand-new and still hardly understand it, and mostly avoid it... Enterprise languages are the dregs. Good old boss I had was very solid in .NET and moved to Ruby just because of it. He was tired of working with the lazy parasites in these risk averse shops.

though, sure beats MUMPS I guess heh

@MetaFight or why half this room gets deleted ;)

@psr that's the easiest/best way anyways, why not just do it that way in the first place?

nooo. I waited too long to delete it :S Now the only option is "permalink". I want "nevalink"

Stop Writing Classes

:) I give out my P.SE account to interviewers et al. I'm totally surprised none have ever followed me in here, and I've asked and none have yet claimed to have looked at any of my answers at all. Had one say they looked to see my rep.

@MetaFight ... or is it too long? ;)

@JimmyHoffa This is why I don't put it on my resume. If they really want to see that, they can find it on my LinkedIn profile, which is on my resume.

I'd be happy to speak with a prospective employer in an SE chat, I could do it in my boxers

I'll probably include my PSE account in my resume if I ever need to go job hunting again, though not that prominently

@Ixrec should just include the flair! haha

@enderland but not the minimum number of pieces, of course

It's a Whiteboard miracle!

I guess Workplace could be useful if I ever interview outside my current company, especailly for a position with any management piece to it

@JimmyHoffa Or worse, "It took you 2 hours to solve that GIS problem, why did it take you six months and an army of PhD's to solve this image detection problem or scheduling problem?

@RobertHarvey agh do not listen to this schmozenheimer! He just said the terms "separation of concerns, decoupling, yadda yadda" are things he's never used, and when people do use them, they're trying to pull a fast one on you. After opening the talk saying "we ship features not code" which for those of you missing the business translator means: "Fuck coders and technical debt, make that shit work I want money!"

@JimmyHoffa Admittedly some of his examples are contrived, but he does make some good points. The muffin example he gave seems extreme, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Also, I didn't actually see the muffin code.

@JimmyHoffa one can always respond with "normally I decouple things because their coupling got in the way of adding features to them"

I think his best point was "If you have a class with a dict, but your only two methods are init and execute, then you don't need a class, you just need the dict."

@JimmyHoffa that's the perpetual problem in everything though

@Ixrec pah! I don't care about your code! Just add features! Damn lazy developers

Also, he got some interesting pushback at the end of the presentation. But, in general, I think there are a lot of problems that can be solved with functional composition that don't require classes.

@RobertHarvey I agree with that point, but I sincerely doubt he understands the concept. He sounds like he's talking over his own head.

Well, he did seem a bit nervous, but I attributed that to talking in front of a crowd.

Also, Conway's Game of Life is the new FizzBuzz.

@JimmyHoffa to be fair, he said he never used those words, not that he never decouples things

and the comment right after that about "people always mean different things when they use those words" is definitely valid

Our Man in Bananas. Well, if I need bananas, I guess I know where to go.

Ehm, so my wife thinks I should find a list of all the aerospace companies that do business at Edwards Air Force Base, and go on their websites and see if they're looking for software developers. Does this seem like a good use of my time?

I've done a search on Indeed and Google for "Software Engineer at Edwards Air Force Base," and I keep coming up with the same matches for the same jobs at Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman for C++ work on the F15 that I already applied for.

@RobertHarvey My friend at Lockheed never got back to me (I didn't even send the resume, just texted). Honesty the NASA job market is really bad here, that's like all the local business owners talk about (like the support industry stuff like barber shop, that sort of thing)

@durron597 What area is that?

@RobertHarvey Johnson space center (houston)

I run into people who work or worked at Armstrong from time to time. They all say the same things; nothing but doom and gloom.

> You have excellent time management skills and are realistic with your time estimates.

Oh, sure.

w00t I got Eclipse Process Framework Composer working.

Hang on. Are you interested in moving to San Diego?

Are you talking to me?

Yes.

The answer is always "sure, for the right opportunity."

Northrop Grumman is hiring for a really cool project.

The posting the recruiter sent me says it requires a current active DoD clearance, but there may be others or there may be room to drop that requirement.

My Secret clearance can be picked up by a new employer until October.

However, you would need to be able to get a TS and be cleared into a special access program.

Ah. Cinder block Faraday cages with no windows. :)

I know some people are adamantly opposed to TS, especially if it comes with SSBI or access to SCI.

And believe me, if it's what I think it is, it's a really cool project.

Cold fusion?

Ha. No. Not that cool

They sent me this one.

"No longer available?"

Hmm. I just was at it.

Looks like the URL doesn't have an ID on it.

Try here?

That's better.

Doesn't look like I qualify. "at least 3 [years] of which is in developing enterprise solutions for Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) in a SOA environment"

Yeah...that's...probably not a big problem.

Can you figure your way around GlassFish and OpenMQ?

At least, if this is what I think it is, you don't need a whole that more than message queues and XML. JAXB, OpenMQ, and maybe a few other things.

@ThomasOwens Probably.

If you can figure out XML and OpenMQ (or any JMS-compliant message queue), you're probably OK.

Although that is assuming I'm right about what this project is.

Java is just different enough from C# that I'm always tripping over some weird thing, like the caching of 8 bit signed ints, and the strange way that streams are implemented.

Anyway, I'll have a look at it. Thanks for the tip.

FYI, it's probably mostly Java 6. So you don't need anything cool. If you do apply and learn more about the job, please let me know. I'm curious if I'm right about the project.

@gnat Nobody knows what STCI means, and you can still pick the tag anyway.

@RobertHarvey yeah. But it starts with rather understandable words, "DO NOT USE THIS TAG"

It's not bold comic sans, and doesn't contain a lap dance.

Doesn't look like we're getting the new layout today, since it's 6pm eastern.

:(

@enderland It's probably harder for me. If I had a face avatar it would be a curmudgeony face.

@gnat That synonym hasn't been made yet

What synonym? I'll quick do it now.

Though it probably should be. @ThomasOwens students -> student?

both tags will be dead in a week anyway

brb

make student primary bc it has "do not use" tag wiki

even though it's smaller

Done.

I'm surprised there isn't an automatic "plural" synonym thingamajig

(that's the technical term)

^^^ lap dance probably wouldn't help

@gnat Would probably make more sense to use a recasing tool on all caps posts

DBAs never get any love.

@RobertHarvey maybe that's because they shout too much. SELECT * FROM DUAL

I like DBAs, unless they have decided the best way to protect the live data is to never allow a code change ever again.

@psr no not you too! There's already too many of them here ;)