25 May 2007 malcolm   » (Master)

Poor Criticism

Straight out of the "cheap shot" basket, but I cannot resist: I saw this post go paste in my RSS feed earlier this evening (via programming.reddit.com). It's almost a textbook example of begging the question.

The author wants to make the argument that you shouldn't hire "rock star" programmers/developers and gives a few examples of IT advertisements looking for such. He then starts his case by definining "rock star" in a way that makes his argument. The problem is highlighted further down as he points out what a really good developer might bring to the table (not just coding, but documentation, testing, and working with and educating others). For some reason, they don't make his definition of rock star. After all, that would undercut the argument and render the post (more? less?) pointless. Such people really would (and do) bring a rock star effect to place in the sense that they perform well and others want to be around them and emulate them. Having a slightly less "glass half-empty" outlook could help here.

Really, people, if you're going to offer "look at the silly animals" commentary, try to make sure you're not inside the same cage.

Syndicated 2007-05-25 19:38:53 from Malcolm Tredinnick

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