Programmer Interview

I need to interview anyone who works as a computer programmer currently, with a Computer Science(or related) degree. All the information I'd need about you is a name, your company you work for, and for you to answer my interview questions. The questions would be about general computer programming as a career, and about Linux vs Windows(as that's my thesis topic).
Is anyone willing to be my interviewee? I'd greatly appreciate it, and you'd get your name cited in a high school research paper. :D
Thanks!!

Question 1: How, as a professional programmer, would you go about writing a program in Java that calculates the test scores of a class and outputs the results in report card format in alphabetical order by student name?


Just some humor... I can't help you, I'm still working on my degree.

My degree is in Electronics Engineering. I program every day. From what ive seen of the R&D side of things most people who do alot of programming have their degrees in other areas and require programming in addition to their primary discipline. People with (only) a CS degree arent generally favored for these positions. I dont have a degree in CS yet, Im considering getting one, just for the piece of paper, but I dont honestly need one to be a programmer.

The best and worst programmers tend to be self taught.

You a sparky too, abachler? What area are you working in? I'm a final year elec eng student. Just curious.

Cannot help you as my degree is in another area.

I appreciate all the responses!
After checking it out further, I believe that the paper would allow for me to interview someone working as a computer programmer, even if they don't have a degree in Computer Science.

Ok, well, I can help you then... however, I'm just a grunt. I would suggest someone with more professional experience. I know there are plenty on this forum.

Alright, well I'm going to post a document with my 10 interview questions, and anyone who'd be willing to can fill it out and email it to me at jmd AT linuxmail.org, post a reply with it as an attachment, or PM me with it. However you'd like would be fine with me. If able, I may use more than one of the interviews in my research paper, and I'll be sure those I use are properly cited as a reference. The only real requirements to fill out the interview are as follows:
Currently employed as a computer programmer
Willing to submit your name and company name
Have used Windows and Linux at some point

Thanks everyone!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by twomers

You a sparky too, abachler? What area are you working in? I'm a final year elec eng student. Just curious.

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For a lot of years I worked as an industrial electrician. I did a lot of programming of PLC's in C/C++. Right now I work for a small research company developing machine vision applications. Its interesing work, even though I took a pay cut to switch my primary field. As an EE with 10 years experience I was pulling in about $75k, as an 'entry level' programmer I make $54, but I think this field will make more in the long run. Particularly becuase it involves more than what the typical programming position does. I also have to do software design, customer relations, purchasing decisions, and I occasionally give a class on some aspect of programming or another. In fact im teaching a coworker how to use multithreading tomorrow.


Name(first and last):
A. Bachler

Company Name:
Withheld

Official Job Title:
Senior Engineer


1. How did you get into computer programming as a career?
My degree in Electronics Engineering and extensinve experience programming PLC's gave me a specific advantage for teh position I am in now, which involes hard/software interfaces between various cameras and computers for machine vision applications.


2. As a youth, what was your job of choice? Is it still the same now? If not, what is it?
Research scientist. Yes, same choice.

3. Do you like your job? Why or why not?
I enjoy the work I do. It involves a lot of creative problem solving.

4. If you could work for any company as a programmer, which company and why?
My current employer keeps me paid and interested.

5. At your job(professionally), what OS have you worked on most often?
Windows, Linux is simply not supported by enough hardware manufacturers and lacks a coherent standard API.

6. Personally, what OS do you use and why?
Windows, for all the above reasons, and it supports more games.

7. Do you prefer to use Windows or Linux?
Windows, see the above reasons.

8. Which OS would you prefer to code for?
Windows, see the above reasons.

9. From 1-10(10 being the best) how would you rank Linux and Windows and why?
Windows ranks a 9, it has some issues, but Microsoft does a far better job of supporting developers than anything there is for Linux.

Linux ranks a 7. Its an interesting alternative, but frankly the linux community has its head up its ass trying to be some kind of counter culture movement against windows. The end result is that linux is just a klunky mess of code that runs fine once its set up but takes too long to deploy and doesnt support enough hardware for highly specialized applications. Linux may be 'free' but its not worth the price in retraining or lack fo technical support.

10. What are the best and worst things about being a computer programmer?
The work is interesting and the pay is better than average, but the hours can be long.