Developer Traits by Language
Rowan’s post 28x ties back nicely to the language debate earlier in the week.
You see, in my mind there’s a relationship between some of the traits I look for in a good developer and their language of choice.
Please bear in mind these are only my opinions based on my experience. You likely value different things so your mileage may vary.
| Trait | Ruby | C# | VB |
| Data representation | Domain Model | Domain Model, Anemic Domain Model, DataSets | DataSets, RecordSets |
| OO or Procedural? | OO | OO, but often procedural objects | Procedural |
| Writes Unit Tests? | Nearly Always | Sometimes | Usually Never? |
| Groks Design Patterns? | Yes | Sometimes | Rarely |
| Refactors often? | Yes | Sometimes | No |
| Abstraction techniques | DSLs, Metaprogramming, Interception, Objects | Interfaces, Interception, IOC, Objects | Modules, Objects |
| Reliance on tooling | Low | High | Very High |
| Read seminal books? (GoF, PragProg or PoEAA) | Likely | Often | Maybe |
| Browser? :-) | Safari | Firefox | IE |
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I think the larger concern is when developers don’t have any understanding of what else is out there. When somebody asks me about Ruby but has never even downloaded it to play with or done any reading themselves it causes me concern.
I haven’t done much with Ruby (and from what I can tell most people writing posts similar to this one don’t do it very much on a day to day basis either) but I have downloaded it, I did install Rails, have built two demo sites from scratch, written a couple of Ruby scripts and then moved on because I didn’t need it particularly in a day to day manner. I’m interested in using Ruby for basic scripting primarily though and think it is important to at least have a very basic understanding what else is out there.
- JD
Agreed. I have used all three languages in anger including 3 years of PowerBuilder/VB so I feel comfortable comparing my experiences with them.
BTW, if you haven’t already, check out this great Scott Hanselman post on why it’s important to keep “sharpening the saw”:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProgrammerIntentOrWhatYoureNotGettingAboutRubyAndWhyItsTheTits.aspx
Hey Andrew. Nice opinionated post. There’s exceptions to everything, but generalising, I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here.
Hi Andrew, I think this is a very useful post. When working with different people and different language backgrounds it can help to understand where they are “coming from”.
Personally I found the transition from Java to VB a bit of hurdle not so much because of the language but the different approaches it leads people to take.