1 Month to become c# contractor?

[tim123]

Just proves that you can over-engineer something. If it works it works. That's what the IT industry is built on. Roll out then fix. Then charge extra for the fixes!

That would be why my current client has 50% of it consultants (including me) working on maintenance.

Peersonally, I'd rather be working on designing it properly!

tim

[bogeyman]

That would be why my current client has 50% of it consultants (including me) working on maintenance.

Peersonally, I'd rather be working on designing it properly!

tim

Consultants work on maintenance now, do they.

My neighbour is a cardiologist and a real consultant. He gets so pissed off by scruffy oiks working in IT when they tell him they are consultants too.

[threaded]

Consultants work on maintenance now, do they.

My neighbour is a cardiologist and a real consultant. He gets so pissed off by scruffy oiks working in IT when they tell him they are consultants too.

I know a lovely lady surgeon whose job it is to insert taps in peoples heads to drain off fluid when they've suffered a brain injury. She terms herself a plumber to anyone who asks what her job is.

[EternalOptimist]

Consultants work on maintenance now, do they.

My neighbour is a cardiologist and a real consultant. He gets so pissed off by scruffy oiks working in IT when they tell him they are consultants too.

ha ha.
your cardiologist neighbour isn't maintaining hearts or repairing hearts ?
he must be creating them from scratch

ha ha. hee hee

can I have one ? plus a liver.
make that half a heart and two livers

[Joe Black]

That was it, that was my interview test.

It was stupid. I bet that there are some 'book' geeks who could answer this and yet wouldn't have the faintest clue as to a practical use for doing this (which ISTM is much more important).

And 20 years on, I'm reckoned to be the C expert at most of the places I work, and I still don't carry this piece of information around in my head.

Indeed, and typical of many interviews.

Unfortunately that's the way a lot of people involved in IT see things these days. That if you don't know library x, y or z, obscure function a (instead of b), or have only worked with version x, instead of y, then you couldn't possibly conceive how to design/develop software.

The irony for us oldies is that when .NET, Java, or any other language/system introduces a new way of doing things it just begins another round of 'I can use version X' without ever understanding how things should be used, or realising that most of these ideas were thought about, and learnt by some, 20 or 30 years ago.

[threaded]

Indeed, and typical of many interviews.

Unfortunately that's the way a lot of people involved in IT see things these days. That if you don't know library x, y or z, obscure function a (instead of b), or have only worked with version x, instead of y, then you couldn't possibly conceive how to design/develop software.

The irony for us oldies is that when .NET, Java, or any other language/system introduces a new way of doing things it just begins another round of 'I can use version X' without ever understanding how things should be used, or realising that most of these ideas were thought about, and learnt by some, 20 or 30 years ago.

Tell me about it: just how many times has CORBA been re-invented, and badly t'boot.

[VectraMan]

No, it requires that you know the standard library "stdarg.h" functions.

I did not, (I didn't even know that they existed at the time of the test, and like I said, apart from this test I have never had any need to know).

You could parse a DOS command line with just pointers and strings. If you can't handle that, there may be no hope for you (and you'll have to take up C#).

I can never remember the syntax for pointers to functions though.

I used to ask people in interviews for VC++ how they'd sort something, and the answer I was looking for was "call the qsort function in the standard library". But nobody ever gave that answer.

[Francko]

You mean you don't just give the names of your mates as references, passing them off as former employers?

That would be very hard for Sasguru, as he still has to find one yet.

Shaun, you couldn't make it with spaniards... perhaps should take some hints from the Roma team next time?

[Bod]

Taken from "TheFaqqer's Guide to Blagging", chapter 1.

Is this leaflet available as a PDF ?

[Bod]

When you first start out this seems way too much, however I have learnt (by doing M$ exams largely) the following:

Shimano, if you decide to go for the one month C# hyper-learn, I can highly recommend this book :

Murach's C# - Joel Murach & Doug Lowe

Borders stung me £43 for a copy but on reflection it was worth every penny, and besides it's paid for in your first hour of C# contracting.