Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there.
>
> Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.

Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success.

> Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;)
>
> Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo !
>
>
> PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer:
>
> When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only
> tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out
> of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and
> eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the
> way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the
> process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better
> people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight
> hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued
> for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using
> to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried
> the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and
> programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than
> programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a
> different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk
> environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach
> a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of
> technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met so
> far.
> The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool
> that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds
> in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They
> were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out
> to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two
> weeks? we thought.
> Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we
> were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of
> them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job.
> Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit-
> ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse
> (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were
> homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out
> diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien
> experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft-
> ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why it
> works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking
> for developers.

Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are better, but there are not many of them.

> Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs
>
> Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/
> Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/
> Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st
>
>

On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:34 AM, laurent laffont wrote:

Hi,

I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there.

Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.

Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;)

So we can add an entry to the "companies using pharo" soon, I hope!

http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories

--

Marcus Denker  -- http://www.marcusdenker.de
INRIA Lille -- Nord Europe. Team RMoD.

On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there.
>
> Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.

Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success.

> Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;)
>
> Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo !
>
>
> PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer:
>
> When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only
> tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out
> of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and
> eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the
> way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the
> process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better
> people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight
> hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued
> for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using
> to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried
> the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and
> programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than
> programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a
> different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk
> environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach
> a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of
> technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met so
> far.
> The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool
> that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds
> in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They
> were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out
> to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two
> weeks? we thought.
> Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we
> were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of
> them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job.
> Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit-
> ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse
> (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were
> homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out
> diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien
> experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft-
> ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why it
> works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking
> for developers.

Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are better, but there are not many of them.

> Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs
>
> Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/
> Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/
> Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st
>
>

Congrats Laurent. I hope you can succeed!  Remember that business is also part of the community. There are a lot of several companies held by guys in our community (also using Smalltalk). You, companies, should talk and do business together :)

Cheers

Mariano

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there.
>
> Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.

Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success.

> Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;)
>
> Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo !
>
>
> PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer:
>
> When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only
> tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out
> of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and
> eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the
> way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the
> process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better
> people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight
> hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued
> for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using
> to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried
> the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and
> programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than
> programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a
> different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk
> environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach
> a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of
> technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met so
> far.
> The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool
> that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds
> in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They
> were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out
> to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two
> weeks? we thought.
> Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we
> were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of
> them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job.
> Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit-
> ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse
> (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were
> homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out
> diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien
> experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft-
> ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why it
> works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking
> for developers.

Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are better, but there are not many of them.

> Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs
>
> Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/
> Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/
> Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st
>
>

--
Mariano
http://marianopeck.wordpress.com

Hi,

I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there.

Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.

Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;)

Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo ! 

PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: 

When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only

tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out

of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and

eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the

way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the

process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better

people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight

hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued

for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using

to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried

the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and

programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than

programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a

different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk

environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach

a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of

technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met so

far.

The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool

that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds

in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They

were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out

to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two

weeks? we thought.

Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we

were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of

them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job.

Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit-

ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse

(and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were

homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out

diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien

experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft-

ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why it

works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking

for developers.

Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs

Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/
Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/

Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st

Congratulations Laurent!

And thank you for having given me the motivation to dive into
smalltalk. Now I have introduced it in the company I work for, and
it's really fun.

I wish you success, too.

Thierry

2011/4/9 laurent laffont <[hidden email]>:

> Hi,
> I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read
> Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went
> to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software
> and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool
> community and I'm proud to be there.
> Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to
> a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every
> day from the community and the urge to continue you give me.
> Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs,
> create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those
> described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go
> independent" so now I need the sequel ;)
> Special big thank you to Stéphane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo
> !
>
> PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer:
> When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only
> tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out
> of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and
> eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the
> way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the
> process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better
> people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve
> straight
> hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued
> for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using
> to search their résumé database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried
> the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and
> programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than
> programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a
> different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk
> environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach
> a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of
> technical maturity that I hadn’t been seeing from the candidates I’d met so
> far.
> The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool
> that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds
> in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They
> were aware that Java isn’t the idealistic panacea it’s sometimes made out
> to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two
> weeks? we thought.
> Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we
> were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of
> them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job.
> Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit-
> ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse
> (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were
> homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out
> diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien
> experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft-
> ware developers. I suspect it’s a little of both, but regardless of why it
> works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking
> for developers.
>
> Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs
>
> Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/
> Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/
> Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st
>
>