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Falling Standards?

 
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Originally posted by Manish Hatwalne:


Exactly!!!
Problem solving ability has to be the most important thing to be tested.

- Manish



There is no dis-agreement on this. Problem solving ability or analytical bent of mind is one of the most important ability.
But then you don't measure all people from the same yardstick. Do you?
Everyone has a different role to play and most of the time developers are supposed to be smarter than their tester counterparts. Again, I agree with someone who posted here that those questions should not be asked from a tester. These two types of people solve two different types of problems and therefore one way of judging can't determine the other's problem solving ability.
 
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Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:


the purpose of the interview process isn't about finding the best candidate, it's about finding a good enough candidate in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost.

--Mark



perfect, really well said. Thanks for a great quote.
 
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Originally posted by pankaj shukla:


There is no dis-agreement on this. Problem solving ability or analytical bent of mind is one of the most important ability.
But then you don't measure all people from the same yardstick. Do you?
Everyone has a different role to play and most of the time developers are supposed to be smarter than their tester counterparts.



I'd say testers need to be smarter than developers. They have to find bugs that developers overlook, yet be capable of thinking down to the level of an average user in order to do the stupid things average users will subject an application to.

As to not measuring everyone with the same criteria, an ex-colleague was once dumped into an "aptitude test" with a group of wannabe flight attendants (he was applying for a position of IT project manager).
They were all subjected to the same tests, which were graded the same.
 
pankaj shukla
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Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:


I'd say testers need to be smarter than developers. They have to find bugs that developers overlook, yet be capable of thinking down to the level of an average user in order to do the stupid things average users will subject an application to.



With all respect to your thoughts, I beg to differ. Finding fault in the system is always relatively easier than building the system. It applies to social systems and Software Systems are no different.

I don't know which country you belong to but atleast in India, developers are paid more than testers and the reason is obvious.

As far as aptitude test(that involves reasoning, quantitative etc.) is concerned, there is no harm in putting developers and testers both.
But I would rather be interested in a tester who can tell me what all will he do if I asked him to break a system(no gender bias!!) rather than asking him how will he build a particular system or sub-system or module whatever.
 
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Originally posted by pankaj shukla:

most of the time developers are supposed to be smarter than their tester counterparts



Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:

I'd say testers need to be smarter than developers.



I say hire the smartest people for both roles.

Testing in development are different jobs requirement both similar and different skills. Both, for, example, need to be able to work on a team and communicate with other technical people. Both need to understand how software works, and for both roles we look for people with both these skills. I would put ability to reason into this category.

Developers need to envision how to put things together and how to calculate loads. Testers need to be able to think about how to "break the rules" and wierd situations; they should take pleasure banging at a black box to discover it's inner workings. While both should be able to do both, we look for people more apt a that particular task for the corresponding role.

One thing that makes someone better at either job--at just about any job--however, is raw intelligence.


(BTW, thinking of testers as second rate to developers is not unlike those business folk who consider developers second rate to business people.)

--Mark
 
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Originally posted by pankaj shukla:

With all respect to your thoughts, I beg to differ. Finding fault in the system is always relatively easier than building the system. It applies to social systems and Software Systems are no different.



Its not always so easy to find the fault. They need lot of domain knowledge to find few errors(not all errors) and they need to understand the customer requirements well before start testing.


in India, developers are paid more than testers and the reason is obvious.


I dont think that testers are paid less compare to developers in India.

Atleast the products I worked so far, testers are as smart as devlopers(some times more smarter) and equally paid as developers. In one of the product(there multiple components running on UNIX environment) I worked, the testers are very good to find out the bugs, taking logs, locating the component that which component generating the bug and assigning the bug to component owner. Some times they used to suggest what fix need to be done.
 
udaya bhanu
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Originally posted by pankaj shukla:


atleast in India, developers are paid more than testers and the reason is obvious.



That may be a personal experience. I have seen very compentent people in testing and being paid sometimes higher than others.
 
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I have interviewed around 50+ people with average experience of 1.5 year for the post of Developer.

I asked them only 3 simple questions
(1)In System.out.println(), what is System? What is out? What is println?
(2)What is JVM, JDK, JRE?
(3)What is the Servlet life cycle?

Why not a single candidate was able to give convincing answers?

Are we running short of skilled worker? Or people don�t want to study concept in depth?



Ok if he answers all the above questions will that candidate get the Job??? If he gets that job will he be able to get atleast 50% of the billing rate that the company gets??? Its fortunate that he knows the purpose of System.out.println().And JVM, JDK, JRE are related to Java.It takes hardly 10 mins to learn the above topics.Look at what he know and what he can do instead of what doesn't know , because no one is perfect...

How may people know what exactly is a operating System and how exactly it works(Like that there are so many things)..are we not using it in our daily lives??? This is the problem with Desi interviewers..
 
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Originally posted by Sri Jad:
Ok if he answers all the above questions will that candidate get the Job???


No, if he answers all three questions correctly then we start with advance topics.

Originally posted by Sri Jad:
If he gets that job will he be able to get atleast 50% of the billing rate that the company gets???


Don't divert the thread. We are not touching this issue.

Originally posted by Sri Jad:
Its fortunate that he knows the purpose of System.out.println().And JVM, JDK, JRE are related to Java.


fortunate?
These is the Indian Standard - not the International Standards.

Originally posted by Sri Jad:
It takes hardly 10 mins to learn the above topics.Look at what he know and what he can do instead of what doesn't know , because no one is perfect...


The main purpose of interview is not to identify that one is perfect or not � but one has a knowledge / potential for the desired post or not.

Originally posted by Sri Jad:
How may people know what exactly is a operating System and how exactly it works(Like that there are so many things)..are we not using it in our daily lives??? This is the problem with Desi interviewers..


If you have applied for the post of Java Developer, it is not necessary to know your above things. But if you have applied for the post in Network Department � you must know the basics of OS and Networking.
 
Sri Jad
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No, if he answers all three questions correctly then we start with advance topics.



What you'll do if he is able to answer the advanced question(for example a HQL Question in Hibernate - which is very important from your project point of view) correctly and failed to answer System.out.println(what is System ? what is out and what is println).

These is the Indian Standard - not the International Standards.



Nothing like Indias Standard and International Standard.Only IT Standards.

The main purpose of interview is not to identify that one is perfect or not � but one has a knowledge / potential for the desired post or not.



All the Java Developers doesn't need to know In System.out.println(), what is System? What is out? What is println? .May the developer in your project need to know..

If you have applied for the post of Java Developer, it is not necessary to know your above things. But if you have applied for the post in Network Department � you must know the basics of OS and Networking.



Thats your opinion , Keep it with you.I may feel differently that as a developer he needs to know the basics of computer science.

Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:


the purpose of the interview process isn't about finding the best candidate, it's about finding a good enough candidate in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost.

--Mark



I agree with Mark.When i agree with the term good enough candidate , i mean to say its enough for a developer to know the purpose of System.out.println he need now neccecerily know what is System , what is out and what is println or Servlet Life Cycle etc..Again its just my opinion and it also depends on many factors like

1.Market condition
2.Candidate's other skills
3.Rate
4.Urgency

No Hard feeling Just a healthy discussion..
 
pankaj shukla
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Originally posted by udaya bhanu:


That may be a personal experience. I have seen very compentent people in testing and being paid sometimes higher than others.



Since you have seen "some" people being paid "sometimes" higher than others, means that it is your personal experience and not the industry standard per se.
Had it been the case that you mentioned, many people would have opted for testing jobs than development jobs. And everybody knows, that's not the case.

Exceptions to the trend are always there but exceptions themselves don't become trend!!!
 
pankaj shukla
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Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:


(BTW, thinking of testers as second rate to developers is not unlike those business folk who consider developers second rate to business people.)

--Mark



Its not a question of me thinking testers as second rate or business folks thinking them second rate.
Because of anybody's wishful thinking things don't become that way!!

Its always a question of who calls the shots and who is replaceable.
The day business people become easily replaceable than the developers, the equation will change.
As an another example, In India, as far as I know there aren't many sectors except IT where consultants request people to come for an interview and the developer makes a decision based on his/her convinience. In other sectors, there will be typically one job and 1500 to 2000 applicant queueing up for the job.
Again the demand and supply equation!!!

Historically also scientists have always needed patronage from the kings and without money nothing runs!!!
 
udaya bhanu
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Originally posted by pankaj shukla:


Again the demand and supply equation!!!



good that you got it right this time. most of the time it is demand and supply, not "smart" vs "not so smart".

you know some time back people in CM with around 1 yr exp were offered 6 L+, does that mean everybody should have jumped to CM?
 
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