RE: Growing your own programmers

[Roger Boucher <RBoucher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I went to a very good technical school in San Diego after graduating
with a degree in Psychology.  The group of students that attended this
technical school had a wide range of backgrounds and there were about
thirty of them in my particular class.  Only about three or four of them
had any business trying to write code.  Programming is DEFINATELY an
ability that you are born with... look for people with logical minds who
enjoy puzzles.  Being able to get down to details is extremely
important, but so is being able to see the big picture!

Roger Boucher
Standard Pacific Corp.
rboucher@stanpac.com
714-668-4326


-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Weatherly [mailto:hweatherly@dlis.dla.mil]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 9:25 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Growing your own programmers


Mark,

Allow me to add my 2 bits here, I have read this thread and in spite of
Deans rather gloomy message, I would point out that most (programmers)
were
non technical before becoming programmers; I do agree that the devil is
in
the details though. If your intended candidates exhibit an affinity for
details and like puzzles, chances are good that they can think
abstractly
(out of the box in current vernacular). From my perspective  there is
enough discipline involved for programming to be considered a science as
well as being an art, so go for it, but get someone in as an anchor,
someone with extensive experience that can help the folks in the
transition.

Allen, Mark wrote:

> Would appreciate any input from companies and/or individuals who have
> taken "non-programmers" and through in house training/external
training
> converted them to AS/400 RPG programmers.  I am considering starting a
> program here to do that and would like all the "experts" out there who
> may have done something similar to share their experiences.
>
> Mark Allen
> MIS Manager
> Mattel-Murray
> allenma1@mattel.com



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