C# skills questionnaire

[Andy Summers]

Hi All,

Does anybody know how to determine C# skill set of a new hire?
Our company is about to move to .Net and we have no experienced developers
to assess C# skills .
Are there any on-line questionnaires you can point us to?

Thanks,
Andy

[.\\\\axxx]

On Jul 2, 7:37*am, Jeroen Mostert <jmost...@xs4al l.nlwrote:
<snip>

Most current-crop developers have been raised on Java and should be able to

<snip>

--
J.

really?

[Lloyd Dupont]

C# skill is no big deal.
What matter more (takes more work) is comprehensive .NET framework
experience.

I mean the C# syntax can easily be learned and mastered in 1 week.
The real value is in knowing whole part of the API, like GUI programing in
WPF or Winform, or Web developement in ASP.NET, to name some major category.

You can ask people to show sample of their work, that would give you an
idea.

Ask what are their favorite community resource (for exemple:
codeproject.com , MSDN.microsoft. com, windowsclient.n et, asp.net,
codeplex.com).

What are their favorite tools (should at least include some of the
following: Visual Studio (express?), Reflector, NAnt, XamlPad, NUnit).
"Andy Summers" <an*********@po lyoptimum.comwr ote in message
news:Ob******** ********@TK2MSF TNGP02.phx.gbl. ..

Hi All,

Does anybody know how to determine C# skill set of a new hire?
Our company is about to move to .Net and we have no experienced developers
to assess C# skills .
Are there any on-line questionnaires you can point us to?

Thanks,
Andy

[Peter Duniho]

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:10:23 -0700, Lloyd Dupont <[e-mail] oveme.net>
wrote:

C# skill is no big deal.
What matter more (takes more work) is comprehensive .NET framework
experience.

I mean the C# syntax can easily be learned and mastered in 1 week.

The _basic_ syntax learn in one week? Especially if you're not using any
of the C# features that don't directly map to C++ features. Sure.

The language _mastered_ in one week? Not even close.

I do agree that learning the .NET framework is obviously a very important
part. But being able to use the unique and powerful language features is
a very important aspect of productivity, and there's no way to achieve
mastery of that in a week. At best, a dedicated learner could achieve an
"advanced intermediate" (not mastery) skill level in a matter of months.

Pete

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Lloyd Dupont <[e-mail] oveme.netwrote:

C# skill is no big deal.
What matter more (takes more work) is comprehensive .NET framework
experience.

I mean the C# syntax can easily be learned and mastered in 1 week.

That was true for C# 1. It's certainly not true by the time you include
C# 2 and 3.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.co m>
Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com

[G.S.]

On Jul 1, 4:26*pm, "Andy Summers" <andysumm...@po lyoptimum.comwr ote:

Hi All,

Does anybody know how to determine C# skill set of a new hire?
Our company is about to move to .Net and we have no experienced developers
to assess C# skills .
Are there any on-line questionnaires you can point us to?

Thanks,
Andy

Aside all "smartness" in previous answers, it's true that it's one
thing to determine C# skills and completely different animal
assessing .NET framework and overall coding experience. And not having
the skill yourself is what makes this task challenging.

We recently had to go through similar exercise. Don't have a cookie-
cutter for you, but following may help:
- find some C# Microsoft exam questionnaire and extract the questions
that most matter to your particular need. I used free online tests to
find pure C# syntax questions. Google "free practice test MCSD".
- Somebody here advised you to ask for favorite tools. I agree but I'd
say you need to ask if they are familiar with the tools you're going
to offer. Start simple: "how do you write a stored procedure and how
do you commit it to a SQL server". Then go as deep as possible/needed.
- We took a technology the candidate claimed she'd mastered and made
sure that she really possessed the skill, not just previous encounter
or consumption of that technology (as most of the resumes end up
being). As an example, we took a few samples from .NET/VS on-line help
and created a set of questions that asked how to accomplish certain
things with a DataGrid control for example... We tried to be able to
sift through people who know how to drag/drop and set some right-click-
available properties of the DataGrid control and find the candidate
who knew how to programmaticall y add a check-box column.
Sorry - didn't mean to "Advise" - just wanted to share our recent
experience.

[Jeroen Mostert]

Peter Webb wrote:

>
"Jeroen Mostert" <jm******@xs4al l.nlwrote in message
news:48******** *************** @news.xs4all.nl ...

>Andy Summers wrote:

>>Does anybody know how to determine C# skill set of a new hire?
Our company is about to move to .Net and we have no experienced
developers to assess C# skills .

Then why are you moving to .NET? That sounds rather paradoxical.

Maybe they have .NET skills, but in C++ or some other language.

It's possible. Not particularly likely, though.

>I'd invest in in-house training instead.

Maybe they are, as well. Maybe they want an experienced C# developer on
their development team, rather than relying completely on people who
have only been on a training course.

That's a good point, but part of the difficulty is hiring an experienced
developer who will be any good at supporting the others if you have no
in-house experience with it *at all*. At least a basic level would help a
lot in figuring out whether someone could be of use.

<snip>

Gee, the guy wants some C# resources and you criticise his company's IT
strategy.

I don't know if that's his company's IT strategy. I'm just cautioning
against a particularly common IT strategy.

Wow. All this advice on how to cross-train different types of
programmers, but not a single word that answers his question.

I can't answer his question directly. Does that mean I can't post a response?

You must be really, really good to be able to provide all this high
level IT training strategy advice from the information provided in a
mere two sentence post.

If I came off as heavy-handed, I apologize. The advice was not tailored to
the OP's situation, of which I of course know nothing. I'm sure it can be
appreciated in the same context.

--
J.

[Jeroen Mostert]

..\\axxx wrote:

On Jul 2, 7:37 am, Jeroen Mostert <jmost...@xs4al l.nlwrote:
<snip>

>Most current-crop developers have been raised on Java and should be able to

<snip>

really?

Well, it's been the darling of CS courses as the teaching language for quite
a while now. There are still plenty that still go for C/C++, of course, and
some will have switched to C#.

Of course, it depends on your definition of "raised"... Most developers will
have seen another language before they ever saw Java.

--
J.

[Ben Voigt [C++ MVP]]

Andy Summers wrote:

Hi All,

Does anybody know how to determine C# skill set of a new hire?
Our company is about to move to .Net and we have no experienced
developers to assess C# skills .
Are there any on-line questionnaires you can point us to?

Brainbench....

>
Thanks,
Andy

[raylopez99]

On Jul 2, 12:26*am, Jon Skeet [C# MVP] <[e-mail] mwrote:

I mean the C# syntax can easily be learned and mastered in 1 week.

That was true for C# 1. It's certainly not true by the time you include
C# 2 and 3.

Well speak for yourself Jon. The rest of us took about a week. I
myself learned from a book "C# Programming: with the public beta" by
Harvey et al, which was C# beta (1999). And I see no need to buy
another book. However, I did have C++ experience beforehand.

As to the OP, I would consider asking applicants to show sample code,
check their references, and as a last resort ask them to do a short
sample program, for example a GUI that solves the 8-queens problem or
Towers of Hanoi.

RL
[C# N00b MVP]