Does Thirdi have Good Programmers?
Hello, just a quick introduction, my name is Mark Deepwell, and I work for the best software company on the planet, Thirdi Software Inc.
I recently read Daniel Tenner’s blog post on How to recognise a good programmer, and I was curious to see if we do have good programmers according to his criteria.
First I thought about the passion each of us has for our job, and asked each member of the team if they love what they do, and in fact, I quickly found that each one of us here at Thirdi loves what we do.
Ivan likes the whole software development process, from requirements and design to the final high quality product. Stan enjoys solving programs with an elegant solution. Abe, our QA guy, is passionate about delivering the best possible software to our clients and is not satisfied with a product until it is bug free. Matt loves his job so much he says it doesn’t feel like he has a job anymore. And I enjoy creating what we call painless software, software that is simple, easy and straightforward to use.
From talking with the team, I learned that self-teaching is a pretty strong part of our culture. Stan, a Java programmer, learned PHP on his own for a new project and Ivan picked up the Zen Cart framework when he created an online store. Learning a new framework or technology is relatively easy, but being able to leverage it appropriately is a challenge. We don’t use the latest technology buzzword just because it’s the current hot item, but we would use it if the scenario were appropriate. Each of us are self learners because we enjoy it, and we can use the added skills to build better products.
Each of us has worked with a variety of technologies, from bash shell scripting, to JavaBeans, we have used a wide variety of tools and languages: Java, Ruby, Bash, C++, Hibernate, JV2, JV3, Struts, Perl, PHP, Symfony, JMS, Propel, Torque, SOAP, Lucene, and many more. This is just a subset of all the technologies and experiences various members of our team have gained.
Even for a new project each of us will be working on, we have decided that it will be built on Ruby on Rails, an up-and-coming web framework that we’ve been wanting to try.
Does Thirdi Software have good programmers? I believe we do, and the breadth of skill and experience we each bring to the table surprised me.
Tags: framworks, good programmer, passion, self-taught, technologies, the team
February 27th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Two other important attributes that the Thirdi development team has is our unwillingness to compromise the quality of our work and our ability to work with inherited codes.
Although as software developers, most of us are guilty of cutting corners in our codes at one point or the other, as much as humanly possible and our sanity permits, the Thirdi team has gone the extra miles and put in the extra hours to deliver quality products.
In terms of working with inherited codes, I always think it takes relatively more patience and skills to work with and improve on others’ codes (without breaking them) than when working with my own codes. In addition to trying to understand the function of a block of codes, the deeper question that needs to be answered is, “Why did the other developer did it this way?” Contrary to popular belief, the answer “because they are stupid and unprofessional” is often the wrong answer. More logical answers can often be found in the constraints in the development environment, technology framework, business requirement, architectural and database design, background processes etc.
For the past year, the Thirdi team has really stepped up to take on any challenge that came our way. And we are still going strong this year! Our goal, as Mark pointed out, is to deliver insightful and painless software. I am proud to be on the team