Off topic, I guess, but interesting nonetheless. Though not as interesting as that, at some point, the three words "none," "the," and "less" were all crammed together to make one word. I think I may propose "asfarasiknow" and "ifirecall."<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Svetlin Nakov</b> <<a href="mailto:svetlin.nakov@devbg.org">svetlin.nakov@devbg.org</a>><br>Date: Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 12:08 PM<br>
Subject: RE: [jug-leaders] Why is it so hard to recruit good [enough] people?<br>To: <a href="mailto:jug-leaders@jugs.dev.java.net">jug-leaders@jugs.dev.java.net</a><br><br><br>
<div bgcolor="white" link="blue" vlink="blue" lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">Hi, Leaders,</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">I have my own solution to the
problem with finding skillful Java developers. If I can not recruit good
people, I can train them inside my company. It works as follows:</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">1) We start a free of charge training
course in Introduction to Programming with Java (<a href="http://academy.devbg.org/training/courses-intro/intro-to-programing-with-java/" target="_blank">http://academy.devbg.org/training/courses-intro/intro-to-programing-with-java/</a>)
and attract 60 people with zero programming skills. It is easy to attract
people without fee.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">2) We make an exam after the first
week and select the best 30 students that continue.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">3) We make a graduation exam after 1
month (at the end of the introduction course) and select the best 15 students.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">4) For the second level course we
have 15 junior people with high potential and motivation. We train them for 5
months in all they need to start their careers as Java developers (OOP, Java
language, major APIs, databases, GUI development, Web development, software
engineering, team working): <a href="http://en.academy.devbg.org/training/core-java-developer-programming/" target="_blank">http://en.academy.devbg.org/training/core-java-developer-programming/</a>.
Training in performed in the evenings and in the weekends and senior developers
from our company train the juniors as part of their job. We have created curriculum
of about 3000 PowerPoint slides with examples and demonstrations and we
constantly update them as technology evolves.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">5) Finally we get 10-12 very
skillful junior developers graduated our trainings and we assign them in real projects.
In fact they start working in real project few months before graduation. After a</span></font><font color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font><font color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">year
most of them can do complex jobs with almost no supervision</span></font><font color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;" lang="BG">.</span></font><font color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> After 2
years we have almost senior people who can take team lead positions in small
teams and can train junior people.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;">It works at our company but it costs
lots of resources, time and investment so we force all our trainees to sign a
contract for 2 years at the very first lecture of the Intro Java course.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: windowtext;"> </span></font></p>
<div>
<div>
<p><b><b><font color="#400080" face="Arial" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(64, 0, 128);">Svetlin Nakov</span></font></b></b></p>
<p><font color="#400080" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(64, 0, 128);">Chairman</span></font></p>
<p><font color="#400080" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(64, 0, 128);">Bulgarian Association
of Software Developers</span></font></p>
<p><font color="#400080" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(64, 0, 128);"><a href="http://www.devbg.org" target="_blank">http://www.devbg.org</a></span></font></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;" align="center"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: windowtext;">
<hr align="center" size="2" width="100%">
</span></font></div>
<p><b><font color="black" face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; color: windowtext; font-weight: bold;">From:</span></font></b><font color="black" face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; color: windowtext;"> Fernando Fernandez [mailto:<a href="mailto:fernandez65@gmail.com" target="_blank">fernandez65@gmail.com</a>] <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, April 02, 2008
9:07 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> <a href="mailto:jug-leaders@jugs.dev.java.net" target="_blank">jug-leaders@jugs.dev.java.net</a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [jug-leaders] Why is it
so hard to recruit good [enough] people?</span></font><font color="black"><span style="color: windowtext;"></span></font></p>
</div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<p><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Antonio Goncalves wrote: </span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">... (why is it so hard to recrut good people)
...</span></font></p>
</div>
<p><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br>
Although some comments have been made already on this parenthesis, I think this
subject deserves a thread on it's own. We all know the problem of finding good
Java developers. <br>
<br>
Initiatives like JUG Tech meetings/forums, JEDI, etc. are aiming at this
problem. The idea is that increasing the number and the quality of the
developers will solve the "production capacity" problem.<br>
<br>
But aren't setting our expectations too high when we say "good"? If,
instead, we focus on decreasing the complexity of the development process and
enable "less good" people to do the job, it would be easier to
recruit...<br>
<br>
Some weeks ago I was giving a talk in a Java oriented meeting and one guy
confessed that a fellow at his company still works in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG_programming_language" target="_blank">RPG</a> and
generally takes less time to <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">solve </span></b>a
problem than he himself takes to <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">plan </span></b>for
a solution with Java technologies. I'm sure that this highly debatable, but I'm
also sure that this feeling is lurking around many users/customers minds.<br>
<br>
Aren't we forgetting the other side of the coin? Increasing ease and
productivity of the technologies would reduce the stress in recruiting, right?<br>
<br>
As JUG Leaders, what can we do? First we must acknowledge the productivity
problem. Then we must help people to find solutions using current technologies.
And finally, we must suggest to Sun and other technology makers that some
effort should be done in this area. <br>
<br>
After all, as someone was saying in our JUG mailing list some days ago, the
latest web technologies are now getting to be almost as productive as VB5 was
in the early nineties - fifteen years ago! ;-)<br>
<br>
Fernando<br>
<br>
<br>
</span></font></p>
<pre><font color="black" face="Courier New" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">-- </span></font></pre><pre><font color="black" face="Courier New" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Fernando Fernandez</span></font></pre>
<pre><font color="black" face="Courier New" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandez" target="_blank">http://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandez</a></span></font></pre></div></div></div>
</div>
</div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Jason Lee, SCJP<br>Software Architect -- Objectstream, Inc.<br>Mojarra and Mojarra Scales Dev Team<br><a href="https://mojarra.dev.java.net">https://mojarra.dev.java.net</a><br><a href="https://scales.dev.java.net">https://scales.dev.java.net</a><br>
<a href="http://blogs.steeplesoft.com">http://blogs.steeplesoft.com</a>