"1. You're more of a pragmatist than a perfectionist. [Yes/No]"
I've always had a problem with this one. Not really sure why.
I hate the word "perfectionist", but I think that's what I am. Perhaps "precisionist" or "maximizer" would be a better word.
Once I started insisting that my app was just right, I was able to move up to the next level of "hackerdom". Some days I write a thousand lines of code and the next day I will agonize over one little construct because deep in my gut, I know it's not what it needs to be. I don't mind being this way.
Of course, I understand the downside of this thinking. You don't want to obsess so much that you never release. But you don't want to release and come back and fix bad stuff too much, either. Experience, and a gut feeling, oughta tell you how far to push.
One of the things that made me feel much better about this was reading about Woz's obsession with making everything just right when he designed the Apple II. Chapter 3 of "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. Which was Woz, the perfectionist or the pragmatist?
(If you don't have the book and haven't read it yet, must reading for all aspiring superstars...
"Which was Woz, the perfectionist or the pragmatist?"
Over time, I've learned that it's not always an either-or thing. Many -- perhaps most -- people are both, depending on the activity. I'm a perfectionist about writing (code and natural language), but I'm certainly not a perfectionist about fashion or cooking, for example.
Another way to look at it -- "the best is the enemy of the good". Which side of that battle you take will depend upon your desired outcome and time frame.
Yeah this question is very complex, but actually to be perfectionist in the design stage is sign of lameness, but in a particular way: good design is the fruit of sacrifice of given things in favor of other things, some kind of engineer-alike-thinking want to get everything at the same time ending with a complex project that's hard to get right.
On the other hand good programmers are perfectionists when they actually are writing code.
Another sign of smart programmers related to this aspect is that often I saw this good programmers open accepting probabilistic solutions that are good enough even if not perfect if for the kind of problem they are trying to solve this is enough and will work.
Less experienced programmers fear this kind of approach because they don't think about the actual result and are not secure enough of their ideas I guess. What is interesting is that there are a lot of times where doing things good enough in algorithms will make it O(N) instead of O(N^2), or in the other hand it can make the code simpler by a factor 10, so this ability is very important.
I remember when Guy Kawasaki started blogging, he made a point about having short, bulleted, easy to digest posts to read. And while that's certainly easier on the readers, it's like eating a lots of junk food: too much of it often leaves me feeling full, yet discontent. And I wasn't sure why at first.
While bulleted points are good in moderation, it's one step away from superstar detection quizzes. Reminds me of quizzes in magazines like Maxim and Cosmo. "Are you having enough hot sex?" quizzes.
I find myself hungering for a good readably long article with new information and good support that makes me think when I see too many of these on hacker news.
To each their own, I guess. I like these bullet-pointy articles with quick tips because they're easier to read quickly. There's a place for research paper-length articles as well, of course, but the two don't compete with each other.
1. Have, more than once, wished to stop time, exit society and live on an isolated island so you can figure out this incredible algorithm that you know will change and amaze the world.
2. Has grasped the importance of concentrating for long contiguous periods of time to work out very deep problems. Probably worked out a very strict, detailed set of priorities to ensure that this can happen on demand.
3. Focuses more on whether he can beat the hardest unsolved problems than bragging that he is the best coder. Realizes that such a definitive metric doesn't really exist. The point is that by focusing on the science itself, you can always be challenged and won't be held back by the satisfaction of being better than some other bum. Although, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have a strong ego internally, just knows that it can only be proved through code.
4. Has some deep-seated inspiration.
5. If forced to stop working on at least something incredible for more than a few weeks, he will go crazy with a large machine gun. If he hasn't had this desire for a good while then he probably hasn't put in the effort to become great. This holds until the day he gets burt out..
Sorry, but your list looks like is searching for psychotic people. I know that some great coders are very passionate about what they do, who borderline into obsession.
I also know, that the best coder/engineer I have ever met, is married, very balanced, works 9-5:30, so he can be home with his kids, and is super super productive, and a very great guy to be around.
Honestly, he doesn't sound like he'd be the best for a startup. Not the best for an OSS project (which are always done on your own time) either. Certainly not going to make any breakthroughs in mathematics. He's going to live a wonderfully marginal life.
He may be the best around, but what's he going to amount too? Nothing different than a million other good engineers working their asses off in some giant corp in china.
I'm completely certain that some of the best painters where psychotic too. Go ahead and fault them for it if that's what you like to do.
"the best coder/engineer I have ever met, is married, very balanced, works 9-5:30, so he can be home with his kids, and is super super productive, and a very great guy to be around."
"He's going to live a wonderfully marginal life."
Uh, sounds to me like he hit the lottery (and so did those around him). What's marginal about that?
He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of a 4g scripting language in a couple of days, just for the heck of it.
And he is very normal, (maybe, probably boring too you as he doesn't look like a mad scientist, or have thick framed glasses, or hipster looking), but he is much more productive in those 8hrs than any of you heroic "young guns" who decide to sleep on the desk.
Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long run.
Remember, staying longer in office, doesn't mean you work harder. Some of the people that stay longer at work, do it b/c to compesate for their inability to code fast. They have to pull longer hours to keep up with their peers.
BTW, he is smart and some good money during the last tech boom.
Not to sound too argumentative, but let me clarify:
> "young guns"
Age has nothing to do with my list.
> He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of a 4g scripting language in a couple of day
fluff talk. You cannot recognize a man who is said to do this by his acquaintances. Almost always, when someone is said to be like this, it turns out to be a gross misinterpretation of their actual ability.
> And he is very normal,
I am not at all saying that such people cannot appear and act so. This is important, I am talking about what the person thinks, in his head. NOT how he appears or acts.
> Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long run.
I'm just talking about being able to get into the zone and stay there for as long as possible. Nothing to do with work schedules. You've really got me wrong on that one. I'm not saying the same amount of work has to be done every day either.
> made some good money during the last tech boom.
Unfortunately, that's not a good metric either because a ton of both morons and smart people got rich.
(Aside: Wow it sucks to not be able to edit comments here now..)
The best living programmer I know cut back to a more normal schedule to spend more time with his wife and kids. (I have seen him program a cooperatively multi threaded app that's resistant to memory errors on a 16khz embedded chip with around 380 bytes of ram and 2000 bytes ROM data.)
You can work 100 hours a week but you will never match a 9-5er that's 30x more productive than you are.
Well put. Even a basic quiz like this highlights the difficulty to hire for startups where every idea and effort of every individual impacts success (positive or negative).
I was going to rant about this, but their company actually has something resembling an original premise, and principals from MIT, as opposed to the usual social-network-rails-2.0 crap. And it is a very engaging ad which appears to have homed in on a large concentration of its target audience.
Good stuff, and well played -- a case study in low-effort, high-payoff marketing in an unorthodox capacity. Smart guys.
<self-serving-crap>
For the record, we're a bit different from many startups in that we believe in "User Generated Revenue" (what was previously known as "sales"). We're growing revenue (not traffic) at double-digit rates a month and having a pretty good time with it.
And yes, we have a bit of an MIT slant. Not just both the founders, but 7 (over 25%) of the team has MIT roots. This could be partly because we're located right in Kendall square too -- but we like to think it's because even smart people like to make money.
</self-serving-crap>
I don't interview usually but when meeting a fellow programmer - my favorite question is what is your title - e.g. if they say Software Engineer - i ask them if they truly believe software can be engineered.. it's a way to open them up - i like to hear their philosophical views on the construction of software.
I've always had a problem with this one. Not really sure why.
I hate the word "perfectionist", but I think that's what I am. Perhaps "precisionist" or "maximizer" would be a better word.
Once I started insisting that my app was just right, I was able to move up to the next level of "hackerdom". Some days I write a thousand lines of code and the next day I will agonize over one little construct because deep in my gut, I know it's not what it needs to be. I don't mind being this way.
Of course, I understand the downside of this thinking. You don't want to obsess so much that you never release. But you don't want to release and come back and fix bad stuff too much, either. Experience, and a gut feeling, oughta tell you how far to push.
One of the things that made me feel much better about this was reading about Woz's obsession with making everything just right when he designed the Apple II. Chapter 3 of "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. Which was Woz, the perfectionist or the pragmatist?
(If you don't have the book and haven't read it yet, must reading for all aspiring superstars...
http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html)