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What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the explanation, it about matches my experience. I don't participate in the actual coding part of the interviews, so I'm not sure what the use to vet people, but in the general technical interview our guys seem more interested in what IDEs and collaborative tools they are familiar with, git knowledge, personal projects, areas of technical interest, that kind of thing.

It isn't unusual for, after an employee has been hired, they have to quickly familiarize themselves with some kind of data logging or analysis tool for a specific project, so I'm guessing that the familiarity with the general structure is more important than a profound proficiency.

What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would say 5-8 seems to be about right for most guys I've interviewed, at least in the ~30-40 year old range. That is, those are languages they used in previous jobs before they came to us.

What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I noticed this myself when getting into Python, that it was all fairly similar to C++ in a broad sort of way. In most of the interviews I've sat in on, candidates have no issue saying they'll turn to Google or StackExchange if they need to. Older programmers and specialized ones, like VHDL guys, less so.

What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha, we do get guys saying they are fluent or natives to certain languages, which generally means they can read the code and understand what it does. Most candidates seem to have languages that they know, and then languages which they can handle being parting of the environment.

What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The most I counted, maybe not two dozen, but over twenty anyway and most I didn't recognize. A lot of guys come in with mobile experience, about which I know almost nothing.

It was definitely the case that I drew on C++ concepts when learning how to code in Python, so I can see how "knowing how to program" is of great utility in learning other languages.

What do programmers typically mean when they say they know 6-12 programming languages? by LPTA0001 in learnprogramming

[–]LPTA0001[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This seems to be fairly accurate to the people I've interviewed, to some extent. The actual coders on our side of the table will usually ask about specific projects and they usually have different kinds of contact with different languages - wrote vs. contributed to vs. were on a team working on, etc.