The required skills of a programmer

What does it take to be a programmer (my other job)? If you are serious about being a programmer you will need to develop the following skills:

• The ability to think macroscopically and microscopically about problems. That means the ability to take a “holistic” view and also a strictly compartmentalised view. In applied terms, you need to be able to bear in mind the purpose and activity of an entire application while also being able to concentrate exclusively on small parts of that application.
• Meticulous, almost natural, attention to detail.
• Utter determination. An ability to spend long periods of time (hours on end) honing projects and eliminating problems.
• Vision. You should be able to bear in mind the end result, the interactive work of art you are creating with your code, even as you are concentrating on single lines of computer instructions. Others will not have such vision - you are special to have it.
• Intellect. You need to be reasonably intelligent to do this job. At times you will be required to understand complex concepts. You do not have to be a genius, and the natural intellectual requirements can often be offset by adequate determination, but you need to be fairly intelligent. You also need to be logical but you do not, usually, have to excel at mathematics.
• Initiative. You need to extremely self-motivated and happy to read very big books and understand them (back to determination again). You need to be keen to find your own answers to problems.
• Communication. You will need to be able to articulate what you do in clear English to lesser-skilled people who have no understanding of programming (and they will often be being paid more than you and demanding things that are not feasible).
• Patience. See above.
• Pride. You should try to do the best that the time will allow, every time.
• Humility. You should be aware that however good you think you are, there is someone better than you - and be aware that is not what it is about anyway. Be modest, happy to share what you know, and to learn from others what you do not know.

The required skills of a trainer

What does it take to do the work I do, a trainer? Here are some of the things:

• Confidence. You have to be happy to stand at the front of a class and talk to complete strangers who will review you at the end. You also have to be able to walk into any company, any situation, adapt quickly and meet requirements.
• Social skills. You should be able to build a rapport with virtually anybody and build a rapport between other people too.
• Managerial skills. The ability to motivate people do things and do them to the best of their ability.
• Tact. The ability to point out errors positively.
• Patience. You must be content to repeatedly correct spelling mistakes when you would rather be discussing concepts, and repeat instructions countless times, because you were ignored on previous occasions.
• Tolerance. You must get used to people coughing at the most inopportune moments, forgetting your earlier instructions, and requesting your help during break times. You’ll people claiming “I did that!” when they logically cannot have performed the specified action, starting to ask questions without first thinking through what they actually want to ask, and calling you over to help them without first putting the code on the screen for you to see.
• Optimism. In general, people with aptitude learn on their own and do not go for training - only those without aptitude are sent. As a trainer you know that no matter how well you teach most people, they will never really be competent (partly of a lack of aptitude and partly because they are not interested). But you must be able to put this out of your mind and continue just the same.
• Technical expertise. You have to be ready to answer any question on an enormous range of technical issues - or at least find the answers fast.
• Communication skills. You must be able to demystify and explain complicated issues in plain English.
• Acumen. The ability to gauge and pitch a topic and at an accessible level for the trainee (perhaps telling only 50% of the story, for now).
• Low ego. You must remember that you’re not there to show off what you know and what you can do. You’re there to relay the maximum amount of information possible suited to the client’s needs. Your success is exactly correlated to their understanding.
• Reliability. You cannot miss a day. When people travel from around the world to see you (as they do, on occasion, to see me) you have to be there every time, without fail.

Gallery review

I am pleased to be able to report that this evening’s artistic event was thoroughly enjoyable and the art actually exhibited talent (artists, note: these two facts are not unconnected!). The event was an exhibition by Indian artist Nandita Chaudhuri at the Nehru Centre, which is located in Mayfair near great old pub The Audley.

It was a pleasure and honour to be surrounded by some refined people of Indian culture and Mrs Chaudhuri’s art was quite striking (all the more so for the fact she painted more than 40 works in only one and a half years).

I chatted with several members of Mrs Chaudhuri’s family including her stunningly beautiful daughter and her dignified mother, and with another lady about the origin of saffron and how to cook perfect rice (I am very keen on Indian food).

Apart from committing one uncharateristic faux pas, which was received with a slightly uncertain expression, I had a delightful evening which was almost enough to restore my faith in art. The faux pas? I said to the artist “It’s been a pleasure to meet you and your lovely daughter… it’s hard to believe she is your daughter”. A classic, I’m sure you’ll agree But of course I meant they looked more like sisters… and they did.

Rich people: I urge you to buy this woman’s artwork. Not as an investment, but because she is gracious, and it is good.

iPod retirer

This device, in association with this, has just retired my iPod Nano. Why carry two devices around when you need carry (effectively) only one? Especially as this enables wireless connection between the earphones and the music player (incidentally, always buy new decent earphones to replace the cheap ones that come with MP3 players, and you will notice a major difference in frequency response).

Regarding the iPhone, by the way, it is locked down to a particular network and I have noticed nothing new that it brings to the table. It is not only very expensive but also in my view not worth considering while it lacks the extremely useful ability to sync contacts and calendar with Outlook.

Design rules

“The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren’t there.”
Gordon Bell

“There are two ways of constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.”
C. A. R. Hoare

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Albert Einstein

“All that is good is simple and all that is simple is good”
Mikhail Kalashnikov

“In Jeet Kune Do, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”
Bruce Lee

Source

Essential ActionScript 3.0

Colin Moock’s new book does not disappoint. Fact after hard fact, succinctly written. This is the vital guide to Flash development (and Colin is a nice guy!).

Nice quotation

“God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god says the same we call him ‘loving’ and build churches in his honor.”

William C. Easttom II

Guido Fawkes

This rather messy and advertising-ridden web site is run by a certain Paul Staines, and it revels in (by its own admission) “tittle tattle, gossip and rumours about Westminster”. Happy to dish it out, Mr Staines (who made his money in hedge funds and hides behind the name of an attempted murderer) is a little more shy when it comes to actually saying things openly under his own name. He was outraged when his identity was revealed.

I agree with the likes of Nick Robinson and Jeremy Paxman that his utterly irreverent and cynical musings are are on the whole not admirable or helpful and do not constitute serious journalism. They are just cheap pot-shots from a distance - in fact it is rather like a tabloid on the Internet.

Nice quotation

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

Thomas Paine

Nice quotation

“Manners are of more importance than laws. .. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.”

Edmund Burke