RE: Question concerning entry level programmer skills

Well said, Jim!

- Dan Bale

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James W. Kilgore [SMTP:qappdsn@attglobal.net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2000 5:48 AM
> To:   RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      Re: Question concerning entry level programmer skills
> 
> Jim wrote:
> 
> > <<snip>> I can assure you, a
> > diploma is no garantee the student learned anything. Only that they
> > paid there full tuition.
> 
> AMEN!
> 
> Now I've hired green programmers for the green screen world for, well more
> years
> than I care to admit, and have been pretty lucky in my choices.
> 
> What I have looked for in a newbie from a two year technical collage which
> had at
> least some courses in RPG  is 1) did they pass the course 2) do they want
> to learn
> 3) are they self motivated 4) are they afraid of work.
> 
> On the first day I assure them that the first thing they will learn here
> is how
> little they learned in school.  Green is green. Some of the responses I've
> read on
> this thread is like asking a driver ed student to enter a stock car race.
> Get real.
> 
> Know subfiles?  A good one will know where in the manuals to find an
> example.  They
> might even have written one as a class exercise.  In either case they're
> about as
> close to the real world requirements as the moon.
> 
> To hire a green grad is a commitment to time and the willingness to
> mentor.  Give
> them a simple project that will actually be used.  Their egos will need
> it.  For the
> first year they'll by doing a lot of cut and paste without having a clue
> as to why
> it works.  And every three months you'll have to talk them out of making a
> career
> change to telemarketing.  But that one day will occur.  The day they walk
> in, and
> you can literally see it in their eyes, somehow in the middle of the
> night, it all
> came together.  It now makes sense.  Now they're dangerous. ;)  At this
> point, you
> start to shift from mentor to manager.
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