The assumption is qualified by the preface "all things being equal." However, the post confuses me. His story quite clearly demonstrates that all other things are _not_ equal, and that "a CS degree, C++ experience, and a year with Ruby on Rails who's asking $20 an hour" is not enough evidence to determine whether someone is competent or not.

He also gives an example of a test of competency that seems to work quite well for his purposes.

The thing that confuses me about the story is that instead of writing a blog post explaining that you need to pay more attention to tests and less to paper qualifications, he seems to be lamenting the fact that the qualifications do not mean what he thinks they mean.

He tosses out the "all other things being equal" phrase rather carelessly, IMO. I think he would be well-advised to spend a lot more time with the idea that all other things are rarely equal when it comes to hiring programmers.

Anyone with a clue who claims to know Rails and C++ would want about 200$/hour?...

On an unrelated note, I find it funny how the french equivalent of "I see where the author is coming from" is "Je vois où l'auteur veut en venir" ("I see where the author wants to go"). Come from, go to...

Actually, no. 'Venir' in French is 'to come' in English, not 'to go' - hence we see words like 'devenir' (='to become') and 'bienvenue' (='welcome')

?!... french is actually my first language. I understand what you're saying, but I seriously always pictured "en venir à" as going to somewhere from the perspective of the person that's moving, never as someone coming from somewhere from the perspective of the... goal? This is confusing...

edit: I think I understand why I picture them as opposite idioms: "I see where you're coming from" seems to refer to the past, like for example if you ask someone from where he's (litterally) coming from (ex: what country?), you're asking where he was before. Whereas "je vois où tu veux en venir" seems to refer to the future, you're talking about where he wants to be... See what I'm saying?

Bien sûr. Je suis australienne moi-même, mais j'habite à paris depuis 5 ans... Je viens de "Googler" 'en venir à', et pour chaque résultat sur la première page, il y a une phrase en anglais qui correspond utilisant 'come'.

Si je traduisait ton expression 'je vois où tu veux en venir', je le traduirais par 'I see where you are going', ce qui n'est pas du tout pareil à 'I see where you are coming from'. En fait, pour moi, la bonne traduction de 'I see where you are coming from' est plutôt 'je vois ce que tu veux dire', où un truc du genre...

Mais bravo quand même. Dans mon premier post j'avais oublié l'expression 'en venir' (sans le 'à'), où effectivement la traduction de 'venir' est 'to go'.

Anyways, hope that cleared things up a little...

Oh, I just realised that I didn't explain the most important thing - the difference between 'I see where you are coming from' and ' I see where you are going'.

The first is more of an acknowledgement that I have understood the premises that your argument is based on. I may use this expression to indicate that I now agree with you, having understood your premises, or it may indicate that I am going to argue against your premises - 'I see where you are coming from, but your premise that we are losing market share as a result of the project is false - statistics show...) The second (I see where you are going) is more a way of saying that I have understood the base of your argument, and I know what the conclusion is going to be. Typically people use this to cut someone off before that person arrives at their (now redundant) conclusion.

My apologies to everyone else for spamming the list with this finer point of language, but as someone living in a country where my native language isn't spoken, I often wish that people would help clear up my misconceptions, so I'm doing the same thing for someone else.