Re: What does 2 to 3 years java programming experience mean to you??

["Ed Jenkins" <digitalman2000hm@hotmail.com>]

If you enjoyed working on the Help Desk, then you should be proud of it and 
do not neglect to mention it on your resume.  I worked on a help desk for a 
year and then trained and assisted other people for another year after that. 
  I find that experience to be an invaluable addition to my programming 
skills.  If you look at what frustrates users and have compassion for them 
as you see the "features" they hate in other programs, you learn to make 
better design decisions in your own software.  That is a special kind of 
skill that will not be reflected on a resume in such majic phrases as "2-3 
years" or "certification".

Ed

Left Behind II:  Tribulation Force is coming soon to a theatre near you.
Stay tuned for more details.

----Original Message Follows----
From: Henri Yandell
To: Lee Chalupa
CC: Shankaran Sudarsanam , Atlanta Java Users Group
Subject: Re: What does 2 to 3 years java programming experience mean to 
you??
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 07:59:10 -0500 (EST)
On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Lee Chalupa wrote:
>Excellent input.
>
>Thanks Shanka!
>
>This project is turning out to be very interesting. Your feedback includes 
>some J2EE skills. I would not have expected that to be included. I am also 
>thinking about unit testing and design skills.
J2EE's a big farce. :) We all know that. Anyone with 2->3 years experience
who doesn't know servlets is probably in a niche.
Unit testing isn't that necessary. The candidate may have used somethign
like JTest and JProbe which eliminate the need to manually write UTs.
>Most of us have seen the problem of job specifications that make little 
>sense. Some of my associates think the root cause is HR people and 
>recruiters that don't understand the technology. I think there is more to 
>it. What I am seeing makes me think that many programmers out there don't 
>have good job specifications either. And that is a scary
Amen. I'm still fighting to get one. It ranges across the board and I
never know when something I'm doing is within the scope of my job, or just
an extra responsibility I am taking on/filling in for.
>thought: The experts don't know. Who else are we to turn to? Management? Oh 
>my! This makes more sense when you realize who is feeding the requirements 
>to the HR people. This is not meant to be a criticism.
No. Management. HR are just getting what they are asked for. They are
responsible for not being able to read a resume that says 'Expert in XSL'
and realise this also means the candidate has their 'Must be good at XML'
need, but they're not the ones who come up with 2-3 years etc. At least
from my experience.
It's the job spec they're given which is at fault.
>I don't believe in beating up people for things they don't know. It is 
>knowledge that some people don't know: a knowledge gap. Filling this gap 
>takes a lot of time and effort and requires analytical skills. And it is 
>knowledge that is going to be used sporadically. So, to satisfy the need to 
>move forward they use a phrase such as "2-3 years java programming 
>experience required" as a placeholder.
I still contend that there's nothing wrong with this. I'm more offended
when I hit jobs that want 3 years Java and 7 years 'IT'. As if 4 years as
helpdesk support really make me qualifiable. [I suspect I ranted about
this last time :) ]
In reality, I think there are more people who can fit the 2 years java but
lack the skills we are stating 2-3 years means, than have less than 2
years java but have the skills that are being listed. The people who need
to improve the phrasing of 2-3 years programming are not the Java
programmers but the HR people.
However, it seems that the way they solve this is to say '5 years Java, 3
years J2EE' now. J2EE being 3 years old this december. Java being 7 years
old.
To say there's a big difference between someone with 3 years Java and
someone with 5 years is more of a stretch than to find a difference
between 1 year Java and 2 years.
[Stuff on Shankaran's inline]
>11/25/2002 4:45:44 PM, Shankaran Sudarsanam wrote:
>
> >Lee, > >Here are my 2 cents: >1. Ability to code in java without 
>referring to javadoc or api for >basic needs (understand java classes, 
>applet, package, import, jar.., >String and integral operations, wrapper 
>classes, inner classes, >java.lang, java.util, java.io, basics of java.awt)
Yes. A nice test can show this. Wait until they ask to be at a computer,
or for a Nutshell, or just see how close the code is.
> >2. Understand the use of threads, gc, multitasking, implications and 
> >ability to use them for the right problem. >3. Understand and use JDBC 
>technology for database connectivity.
+1 for both.
> >4. Write modules or code that use and depend on thirdparty >jars/toolkits 
>or derive from your organization class hierarchy library >developed by your 
>org developers (imports, inheritance, aggregation, >overriding, 
>overloading..).
Hypothetical situation test here. "We have this crap API we have to use,
how would you go about using it.. it has these problems: known> and we 
suspect it will have others".
> >5. Good understanding of OOP, ability to think in terms of OOP, 
> >understand how various OOP features are implemented in java, those that 
> >java does not support directly or at all, and last but not the least 
> >solve business problems using OOP paradignm.
It's an old chestnut, but: "What feature do you wish Java had?" works
well here. You can also ask for a design of a system.
> >6. Knowledge and use of Team Programming, Version control, unit >testing, 
>ANT or similar tool
Knowledge of the environment the employer uses. Failing that, knowledge of
a similar environment. These are quite specific to the company and things
like unit testing and a build tool may not be applicable. Ditto for Team
Programming [as I've no clue if that is some special methodology or just
the old "Can they work with people" bit. Do you mean Pair Programming?]
> >7. Optional - Knowledge and use of JavaBeans.
Mandatory in my view. They may only be a naming convention, but Java beans
are core to the Java standards.
> >13. Optional - Design Patterns
These are also Mandatory. Any programmer without these is someone without
experience.
> >8. Optional - Server side java programming (servlets , jsps , custom 
> >tags, rmi, corba). Web Application server product specific expertise.. 
> >9. Optional - Understand and use java.net >10. Optional - Develop EJBs 
>/for J2EE >11. Optional - Using native APIs from Java. >12. Optional - 
>Swing, java.awt >14. Optional - Extreme Programming
I would agree with all these as optional nicenesses. I tend to assume
servlets/jsp as mandatory, but that's because I often work in those
environments.
Hen


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