Will Knott

I’m not the type to fill in those “what type of X are you” surveys, but when Sean McNamara wrote about his programmer personality type I thought I’d give it a shot. The output is similar to the Myers-Briggs Personality Test but I think the questions are a little too simplistic.

Anyway here are the results of my programmer personality test.

Your programmer personality type is:

DLTB

You’re a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

–Will here. The alternative to a doer is the planner. I will plan but sometimes a prototype is needed to make sure that you are doing the right thing. Personally I’d do after I make sure the requirements are in place. And that’s just the prototype that’s willing to be changed. I suspect I’m right on the edge of the two states in this case.

You like coding at a Low level.
You’re from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don’t mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.

– I’m comfortable with high level coding and scripting but that last 5% is a bit on the mark. There is an old quote which goes “Art is never finished, its just abandoned”. The same is almost true of software. The almost is because software has a “next version”. Getting something working out there is one if the basics of rapid prototyping. Technology changes, requirements change. Having said that, there is a point when a new feature shouldn’t go in, but become a new tool. Keep an eye on that.

You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it’s parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.

– I like working with people. Solo works for me when I’m deep in a function, doing that 5%. The rest of the time I like to be able to bounce ideas. Software needn’t be lonely.

Besides, I do believe in code reviews. You tend to be too close to the code to see something is missing or wrong based on the reqs. Other eyes make sense. That way you can ensure the comments match the code if nothing else, see below.

You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We’re not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

– This is a mix of a learned and an acquired taste. Write a piece of un-commented code. Leave it alone for six months (or six days). Then come back and look at it. Unless you’ve written very accurate function names and variable names, the code will take a while to sink in. Its better explaining in the code (as comments) what you want it to do, in case someone else thinks its meant to do different, and how it works. Its the team programming thing mixed with the big bus theory (which roughly goes as “Splat! Oh noes, that’s the only one who can fix the code”.) And remember to change the description if you change the functionality of the code.

Its also that if you are indispensable, you can’t be promoted.

If you are a coder, or a tech person who has to write at least one script, give the test a shot yourself.

I’m not going to write a lot on picturegate.

Partially because Dr Eoin O’Dell a Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin has a much better (but a snap shot of a moving target) list of all the Picturegate coverage from which you can find out about the reactions online as well as a legal analysis of the likely court actions.

And partially because around the time that the caricaturist, artist and t-shirt maker Allan Cavanagh was being interviewed by George Hook on Newstalk about the reaction to the Cowen/Casby scandal, I was being interviewed by Fianna Fáil (*waves at the appointment panel monitoring this blog*). I actually brought up the painting/apology and the reaction (seconds later) on Twitter and in the Irish blogging political sphere in the interview.

They were aware of it. This was 20 hours in to the anger.

Since then there has been front page coverage in the Irish newspapers, and coverage across the UK, European and American news. Anger at the apparent change in Garda resources to investigate the hanging of the paintings. Cried of state censorship and stifling of free speech. Questions attempted to in the Dáil.

It’s gone from being a (admittedly distasteful if you are in the Cowen family but) mildly amusing “And Finally…” style story to a major news story which its unlikely that RTÉ will want to touch with a bargepole.

The reaction, well I did a bit of Twitter trending and here are the results from Stream Graphs

If I could access this graph for an earlier time the graph would be scary around 21:30h on March 25th when the apology was read out. Twitter exploded for a little while then. It hasn’t stopped yet.  It looks like its easing down a bit, not going to completely die down.

The internet changes things.

Once, if this happened you would have a number of very upset people. Maybe they would ring each other. One to one. And agree in their anger. Now, they can communicate many to many. Pass the latest news to each other behind the mainstream media. React, repeat, retweet the latest information until everyone knows. Dig a story left along by the mainstream media back in to the harsh light of international news coverage.

So if you are going to react, you had better monitor and react quickly.

Things have changed. Its good to talk/type/tweet. Communication behind the scenes will ensure information gets out there, in the same way that the internet treats attempts at censorship (be it a blocked site or bad news) as damage that it routes around. This isn’t always an automatic thing. Often people keep that which they deem important alive.

And kicking.

Repeatedly.

take care,
Will Knott

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• Shouldda left well enough alone… (sluggerotoole.com)

If I have the timing right, this will be uploaded while I’m at an interview, so it seems timely.

My CV as a tag cloud…

Robin Blandord came up with the idea to run his CV through Wordle.net to see what it would look like as a tag cloud. It’s been repeated by Ellybabes, Sinéad Cochrane and Paul Browne. Sorry that it’s in simple black & white and not visually pleasing as the others; I thought about adding it to my physical CV or embed it in the files to see if there was a change in uptake. Given that most (if not all) recruitment agencies parse the résumés they recieve through something similar, it might make sense. Wordle is a Java application which parses text, ignores common words, and creates a tag cloud. The size of the word is proportional to the how often it occurs in the CV.

Putting something like a résumé through it might take a bit of tweaking. Plurals are (currently) counted separately, and other common phrases show up. I needed to tweak my CV to stop my address showing up in the tag cloud for instance.

The other thing is how “management” looms large over both “software” and “database” (with “sql” peeking in there). I didn’t expect that, nor expect to see something similar on the other technical people’s clouds.

Does it give an accurate picture which should be used as a reflection or consideration for employment, or is it really easy to “game” the results to create an artificial profile?

And given the full social media treatment, does a tag cloud of a persons delicious account cast a different reflection than their résumé?

So then,
You hiring?

take care,
Will Knott

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Last week I wrote about a different approach to creating your CV or résumé. This week I’m looking at companies that look for employees in a different way.

Image via Wikipedia

While you could have a “jobs” or “careers” page on your website, if your business works closely with social media techniques then it makes sense to take the approach of Edgecast media and advertise your position in a blog post. Its an approach which can also be used if media is not your main business. You could even advertise the job on FaceBook. In practice it’s not that different from advertising you position in the old fashioned way. (But it might get you some takers.)

There seems to be an alternative, Seth Godin brought it up (pictured right), and it seems to be one that Aaron Strout of mZinga is looking at. Namely don’t send in a CV or Résumé (either in the post or as an attachment). Since they ale looking for a community-centric person person, contact them via Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn or what ever social network they both use (its not clear if he willing to join a new social network just to look at a job applicant. I really should do more in making one). Then (or beforehand), blog about why you should get the job. I presume that they have media monitoring in position (or at the very least, Google Alerts).

Unfortunately for me, the job is in Burlington, MA, USA. But it is an interesting way to pick someone. Essentially it is a try before you decide exercise, which ends up benefiting both parties.

However there is a downside to all this. As Virginia Miracle explains, it is very time consuming. I suspect that if the person’s profile and blog is interesting, you could stay there far too long.

But is anyone trying this technique on this side of the Atlantic. Did anyone try this in Europe let alone Ireland? And how did it work out?

take care,
Will

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m currently looking for work (and keeping my own fingers in my own projects) so I’m interested in companies and people that do things differently.

Image via Wikipedia

First off there is the CV. Yes I have a few that get e-mailed out (and even, gulp, posted), and I have a LinkedIn.com profile (and feel free to recommended me) however I’ve noticed that some people go further. I know I could put a résumé on the blog here, but that isn’t my style.

It is now possible to create a multimedia CV (something no longer limited to portfolios) by using Visual CV. The idea is to update the CV from it’s (mostly) unchanged roots of 1902. There is some sense to it. You can embed examples of your work in the CV. You can show off your showcases. However, being selfish, I’m not involved in the media (pix.ie account aside that is) and given that all the programming work I did has “Confidential, Proprietary” slapped all over it, embedding anything is more of less impossible (and certainly not a good idea. I mean would you hire someone who won’t keep company secrets? I really hope you answered “no”).

Are there other ways to get jobs. As in headhunted. This is where a profile comes in. Be it Monster, IrishJobs or Recruitireland (and others), putting your details in a site like these mean that companies and recruiters can scan through your details and put you firmly in the “maybe” category. Simply put, it is a keyword search. The problem with such a keyword search is that a lot can be missed. Like the little thing called you.

I’ll stick to LinkedIn for now. But despite being recommended I don’t really pump my connections for prospects. But if someone in a company knows me I will be sure to mention it.

So in the meantime I’ll apply for jobs, and hope that they haven’t been filled, like this one.

take care,
Will

When you see an advert titled See the ‘Transformers’ movie for free! you know there has to be a catch…

And there is.

Unless you want to go to Balbriggan, Carlow, Clonakilty, Enniscorthy, Lifford, Longford, Monaghan, Naas, Westport or Youghal, you don’t need apply.

Of course a certain blogger already got to see it for free.

Me? Jealous? Oh yeah!
I’m planning for a Sunday viewing.

Will

tags :
Transformers, transformers movie, Movie, Job search

I hate the idea of a “shout out to all the lads”. It sort of smells like a bad Oscar speech (who should I link to?). But after a lunch with the former workmates I sort of got talked in to it.

I also met up with the lads (sexist I know but none of my former co-workers that blog and tell me about it are female) at the sort of jobs fair in the offices. And a few of the girls and guys who left the company over the years were (wo)manning the stands (Hello again Fiona, I’ll probably meet you at the Fas thing in Dublin) and catching up with what they have been doing, who did what and if there are any jobs going.

So Hello to “the Bell ringer” a.k.a “the chemist”, “The Hillwalker”, “The Librarian”, “abullybeef“, Siasy (remember to tag!), “No Wuccas Man” and “tuff gnarl“. I said I’d shout if you blogged!

And since I’m going to be hitting the Croke Park fair, I’ll call in to the Irish Blog Awards 2007. I said I’d be helping. For the record, I’ve not given up chocolate for lent… so please look for me when you find it there…

take care,
Will

tags :
shout out, Motorola, job search, fas opportunities 2007, fas, Bell ringer, Hillwalker, Librarian, abullybeef, europeanirish, Siasy, No Wuccas, tuff gnarl, Irish Blog Awards 2007, chocolate