The other day I had the chance to peruse the work of another developer, a Microsoft MVP. The code was less than impressive. To be frank, it stunk, but it stunk in a strange way. It had a weird combination of advanced technique and rank naiveté. There was separation of concerns, but it was much more convoluted than it needed to be. The work that the code performed was relatively trivial, but it was hidden behind a bag of patterns and the structure of the classes made finding the code that did the real work an exercise in spelunking.
I mentioned it to a friend of mine, and he shared his story about a hiring interview with an MVP carrying job candidate. The story was eerily similar. The candidate was well versed with the latest and greatest development methodologies, but seemed to lack a grasp of writing a simple “fizz-buzz”. To make matters worse, part-way through the interview the candidate starting listing their “requirements”, which conferences they’d be attending, which technologies they would use, etc.
I was flabbergasted. Granted, my friend was glad the candidate was so forthcoming with his lack of professionalism. It helped make his decision not to hire the guy much easier. After I thought about it a little bit more, I realized that the fault wasn’t totally with the MVPs in question. All of us share a little of the blame.
More...