I don't think its a joke, I think the CEO was genuinely trying to share that he had seen a lot of correlation between folks who programmed in .NET and people who weren't a good fit for his company.
I get similar negative vibe when I talk to people who don't use data structures (seriously I interviewed a guy who wrote a frickin' file system that was linear arrays, all the way down)
But it doesn't mean there aren't jobs that aren't a great fit for those folks, and this is where I think a lot of these discussions go off the rails (if you will forgive the pun).
If I am a programmer who loves .NET, and I read this, I can choose to take it in a couple of ways, I can be offended that this guy has just hugely disrespected me and all my .NET lovin' friends, or I can be glad to know that I don't need to bother myself talking to any of his recruiters that are scouring the globe. As I tried early and often to drill into my kids, you can't control what people say but you can control how you choose to feel about it.
"This article shows the worst thing about all of us as programmers: we tend to run on assuming that we are experts in areas where we have the slimmest idea of what the hell we are actually talking about." -- I think what you were trying to say here (but don't let me put words in your mouth) is that it is a mistake for programmer's to take what they know about themselves and to generalize it to everyone else indiscriminately. I would be happy to interview .NET programmers if they were willing to try other methodologies and languages. However I will relate that I have met people who have found God's Own Language (and it varies from person to person which one it is) and refuse to try any other language, or any other development methodology. If that isn't compatible with mine then we both should know that it won't work well.
The author gives a good description of the kind of people he would like to work with, that is valuable because in reading it you can get a feel for whether or not you would like to work with him. So its a win - win.
In your reply, I think you touch on an interesting aspect of this: why did it push so many buttons?
I really think it has very little to do with .NET -- I can take .NET or leave it, depending on the nature of my needs.
I think it has much more to do with the smart-ass feeling you get reading it, combined with the fact that, if you're any good at all in the .NET universe, you know better.
That made me think of all the times I've spoken to developers when they just knew that such-and-such was true. And it wasn't. That same snarky attitude, that same over-generalizing, that same use of silliness to try to mask the predjudice.
I wouldn't throw out working with this clown. Who knows? Might be fun. But the attitude is worthy of comment, and, since I have been known to be this way myself, I feel like I can honestly jump in.
But really, who this guy wants or doesn't want, or what his opinions are don't matter that much. The interesting question would be how he deals with realizing he doesn't know so much. That's true for anybody.
> I get similar negative vibe when I talk to people who don't use data structures (seriously I interviewed a guy who wrote a frickin' file system that was linear arrays, all the way down)
I get similar negative vibe when I talk to people who don't use data structures (seriously I interviewed a guy who wrote a frickin' file system that was linear arrays, all the way down)
But it doesn't mean there aren't jobs that aren't a great fit for those folks, and this is where I think a lot of these discussions go off the rails (if you will forgive the pun).
If I am a programmer who loves .NET, and I read this, I can choose to take it in a couple of ways, I can be offended that this guy has just hugely disrespected me and all my .NET lovin' friends, or I can be glad to know that I don't need to bother myself talking to any of his recruiters that are scouring the globe. As I tried early and often to drill into my kids, you can't control what people say but you can control how you choose to feel about it.
"This article shows the worst thing about all of us as programmers: we tend to run on assuming that we are experts in areas where we have the slimmest idea of what the hell we are actually talking about." -- I think what you were trying to say here (but don't let me put words in your mouth) is that it is a mistake for programmer's to take what they know about themselves and to generalize it to everyone else indiscriminately. I would be happy to interview .NET programmers if they were willing to try other methodologies and languages. However I will relate that I have met people who have found God's Own Language (and it varies from person to person which one it is) and refuse to try any other language, or any other development methodology. If that isn't compatible with mine then we both should know that it won't work well.
The author gives a good description of the kind of people he would like to work with, that is valuable because in reading it you can get a feel for whether or not you would like to work with him. So its a win - win.