Get to know some of our talented authors featured in our author spotlights. Here you can see interviews, detailed biographies, and book summaries of some of the best in the industry.
STROSNIDER: I have been a Software Engineer for about 15 years. I started on an Apple II that my parents had gotten for the family. I soon migrated to programming embedded systems--mostly industrial machine control systems. Then around 1992, I started writing business software. Ever since then, I've been doing IT-related programming and I started specializing in Clarify programming in 1997.
STROSNIDER: The Challenge of distilling knowledge of a programming language to a series of multiple-choice questions. When I have had the opportunity to interview someone, I've always shown them some code and gotten their comments on its strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, computers aren't to the level of being able to accurately understand a person's "comments" on a given subject. Therefore, I had to essentially reverse the process and offer several "comments" on pieces of code. The qualified candidate will be able to choose the correct one, but the unqualified candidate won't be able to guess his/her way through the test.
STROSNIDER: I am a voracious reader. Not only do I try to read all the industry magazines, I plan a couple of hours a week to read about items outside of the IT industry. It is amazing what you can learn by trying to expand your horizons.
STROSNIDER: The biggest difficulty in learning Clarify's system is that there are no generally available books or magazines on the subject. You can't go to Amazon.com and search for "ClearBasic" or "ClearSupport" to find a book on the subject. The only training available is directly from Clarify. If someone wants to get into Clarify programming, he/she should talk to their IT department and try to get transferred to a Clarify-related project and get trained on the job.
STROSNIDER: I believe that the biggest value that ReviewNet can play is in pre-screening candiates. When I needed to hire several Clarify programmers for a project last year, I ended up talking to about 50 people to find 3 qualified people. It would have been nice to have been able to send those 50 people to ReviewNet first. That way I probably would have only had to talk to 10 or 15 of them. This obviously would have lowered my hiring costs significantly while simultaneously allowing me to spend more time with those who passed the pre-screen.
STROSNIDER: I drew from previous experience I had had with other programmers who had a difficult time learning and adapting to customizing Clarify applications. In other words, if a candidate cannot handle the questions that I put together, he/she will have a tough time coming up to speed on any Clarify- related project.
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