Re: Growing your own programmers

>"It still takes 3-6 month for an experienced programmer to become productive
>and years to become an ASSET."
>
>Surely that can't be true.  If it were true, there would be no contract
>work.  Just my opinion.


Oh, it's true.  I've seen some of the 'program specs' given to our contract
programmers--  it's either pseudo code or code fragments interspersed with
comments describing in excruciating detail how to write the program.

Except for the fact that the person writing the specs doesn't have to do
the coding, and doesn't have to do the debugging, the spec writer has to do
all of the thinking.

The 'contract programmer' has to be hand fed instructions.

Of course, once the 'contract programmer' has been at our company for 3-6
months they have been exposed to our way of doing things and are productive.

And we've had some of the contract programmers back over and over again for
more projects.  They already know us, so they can be productive a lot
faster.

The Company saves money, because they don't pay benefits, and can put the
programmer 'on the shelf' when they aren't needed.

A programmer can program anything.  But to be productive at a particular
comapny, it takes time to learn how the company does business.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com


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