I'm starting to despair of this years crop of developers.

Mark_Wallace

OriginalGriff wrote:

a web developer who says he has no idea how to use cookies or the session but is developing a "five pages of user input web app"; and an intern who wants a video to show him how to put checkboxes on a panel

Lemme guess: the intern is studying for a degree, and the first guy already has one.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

PeejayAdams

SAY,I SAY, I SAY HEY BOY!!! LOOK! YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!!! Those who came before us were digging it round when it ought to have been square. Those who came after us are just plain dumb. I think those of us that belong to the middle-aged spread did have a big advantage over the young squabs, though, through knowing actual languages rather than frameworks-du-jour.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

MadMyche

And I thought it was just me. ... Telling the same people time and time again the same errors in their ways. ... And the people who just don't know how to use the editor to post in code. I don't think I'm getting that much crankier in my old age

Director of Transmogrification Services Shinobi of Query Language Master of Yoda Conditional

MarkTJohnson

GKP1992 wrote:

In short, the work does not demand the same level of expertise it once did.

Never say that out loud! HR and or management will hear then ALL our salaries will be in jeopardy!

Rick York

You can't possibly mean to imply that letting everyone be a developer is a bad thing can you?

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

Gary Wheeler

Slacker007 wrote:

You can't fake the funk

Nice :-D.

Software Zen: delete this;

Mike Winiberg

It's a generic problem. God knows I'm not a brilliant developer - there are many many better than me out there, and I encounter them all the time 8( Yet I see the same kind of mistakes I made when writing my very first pieces of code or web sites still cropping up on pages released into production by teams who claim to be agile, to be doing both TDD and extensive user testing etc. All of which tells me that, as is so common, the process has become more important than either it's correct application or its output. (Are you listening GOV.UK?!)

DJ van Wyk

Sadly it happens more often than you think.

My plan is to live forever ... so far so good

maze3

Can't help myself but I need to know more about the interns request. Checkboxs on a panel? html? is panel some framework component which is likly some div hell?

OriginalGriff

Nope, just a WinForms panel: Drop one on your form, drop checkboxes on it from the toolbox ... :sigh:

Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Never throw anything away, Griff Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

BryanFazekas

OriginalGriff wrote:

Is it my imagination or are they getting dumber and dumber?

It's mostly your imagination. People who shouldn't be in IT have been around since before I joined the club. In the 90's a lot of folks jumped on the IT bandwagon for the salary. The ones that "got it" stayed, the ones that didn't found other careers. The oddities I've experienced include:

Taught one guy how to write COBOL. He had 5 years experience but didn't know how to do a loop -- not just in COBOL, but in general. [I've never compiled a single line of COBOL so me teaching COBOL is an oxymoron.]
A guy who pasted snippets of C++ together and couldn't understand why his program wouldn't compile.
A friend tech interviewed a programming instructor at the local technical school -- she failed the interview, had no idea how to write a functional program.

This problem has been around since the beginning of mankind. However, it may be that the current crop of IT incompetents is less successful in hiding it than previous generations. ;P

matblue25

Yeah, but then these are the people who don’t change the default password on a database or something else equally dangerous. I hate to think off all my personal financial, tax and medical data that’s out there in the hands of people who can’t figure out how to put a checkbox on a form.

OriginalGriff

It's possible, but ... I had one last week who copied and pasted his homework question into a .C file and expected it to compile and run as C code. For some strange reason the C compiler gave him loads of errors and he couldn't understand why. :doh:

Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Never throw anything away, Griff Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

BryanFazekas

You win the Stupid Co-Worker Contest! For years I've said that anytime anyone makes something foolproof, someone else makes a better fool. This is proven true, time after time ...

W Balboos GHB

Slacker007 wrote:

hese "web developers" you speak of, will not be here next year.

OH! How I wish it were so! But, alas, as long as businesses keep outsourcing because they think it will save money (and thus increase profits) these living mishaps will earn a living. I've seen this happen, and pathetically, watched the bosses repeat the process. Hoping they get lucky each time?

Ravings en masse^

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein

"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

Cloud William

But, alas, as long as businesses keep outsourcing because they think it will save money (and thus increase profits) these living mishaps will "earn" a living. FIFY.

Freedom? That is a worship word. -- Cloud William The only thing a free man can be forced to do is die.

Lost User

Ah ... but demand for "web developers" is apparently increasing. A new branch of chaos theory I suppose.

"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal

Plamen Dragiyski

Well, I have seen an HR strategy where more developers do the work faster. So, it is not a quality problem, but quantity. And since not many graduate from universities (we are small country), they have boot camps - 3 months and you become a developer.

User 11232861

What? I thought eating a cookie was an instinctive class! Intro first, I've been "around" programming forever; but recently completed a degree. Perhaps that provides a useful viewpoint. My observation: Schools are trying to touch on every subject, leaving time to go in depth on none of them. I suspect this is coming from the recruitment process having 20+ item lists of required skills, in an even more impossible number of combinations. I've successfully coded many moderate-level projects over the years, and "learned" my way thru every one. That said, the degree I've recently completed taught me very little new material that I couldn't have Googled in two seconds (ref. to development); except maybe some style conventions. On how many different platforms do I need to know how to say "Hello World?" I do know some higher-levels, but I learned them partly in classes many years ago, and from independent research since then. And no, I don't recall cookies being included in any of my classes - but they certainly should have been! My solution: Schools need to pick one or two pathways (language, platform, whatever) and focus on it/them into advanced levels. It's not the platform or language that is important, it's the concepts (granted, that's much harder for HR to access). Throw in some translation/conversion skills, and you'll not only have advanced skill sets, but also candidates prepared for the next 1000 platforms that come out during a students career. That can only happen if the industry leaders change their recruitment strategies. The colleges are simply trying to follow job demands. I realize this all varies from college to college, and perhaps mine isn't big on development, but I suspect there is commonality regardless.