🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bz6wo3.Jz6@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David  
Lemson) writes:
> 
> You wouldn't believe how many headhunters call me in search of
> NeXTSTEP programmers. 

Well, the joke's on them and anyone else who thinks experience is a  
pre-requisite for all employees hired. AFS has 9 programmers now, only two  
of whom (recent arrivals) had ANY NeXT experience at all. Dave and I  
taught ourselves NeXTSTEP programming in less than three months (and I had  
only programmed in ... BASIC ... before), although I'll admit it takes  
almost a year to get really fluent at it. Since then, we have taught  
everybody else in amazingly short periods of time.

My point is that you only need one or two people who really, really know  
NeXTSTEP to build a programming shop, corporate-internal or third-party.  
Everyone else just has to be reasonably smart and open-minded. As I've  
stated innumerable times, the difficulties learning NeXTSTEP relate to  
information volume, not concepts. The AppKit, DBKit, IndexingKit, etc.,  
are just plain BIG, not hard. If you have even one or two person around  
who know how to navigate them, you can keep a whole shop moving forward.  
We do it. So can you.

*soap box on*
Why won't anyone invest in training their employees anymore? Why must  
everyone come pre-programmed for the specific job available? I'd rather  
teach programming to smart liberal arts majors who know how to think, than  
teach thinking to a bunch of computer linguists who only know how to code.
*soap box off*

Thank you. I feel better now.

--
Gregory H. Anderson          | Thus spake the master programmer: 
Master Programmer / Manager  | "Let the programmers be many and  
Anderson Financial Systems   | the managers few; then all will be 
greg@afs.com  (Nextmail OK)  | productive." -- Tao of Programming