Re^2: (OT) Real World Skills Versus CS Skills

[simon.proctor]

Compilers for C# and Java count if they are the professional versions.

Could you expand on that? Working with VS Enterprise Architect at work and using the Standard Edition at home I notice no difference in my ability to write code in C#. I certainly don't qualify a compiler as professional or not. That is counter intuitive to me.

Other than a few rad features not being present or compiler optimisations being crippled there is not baby/professional version of the language merely the IDE. So the IDE for the standard version cost me 80quid. At the time the Enterprise Architect version would have cost 1600quid. There are one or two code generation templates and integration tools missing - but nothing that stops me being a programmer.

Well - in my opinion :).

The machine itself will be bigger and probably have the server versions of software installed.

Is there a server version of C or Perl? How about Python or Ruby? Ok, I know what you mean but thats an overly simplified metric to use. It also only really applies to windows desktops that I can see.

As to your middle ground, I understand your point but I don't agree with how you have put it. Surely, at some point, you will always be assembling areas of prebuilt software. Thats the whole point. Because you install the binary of some application rather than compiling yourself doesn't make you any less worthwhile or technologically (ad/in)ept than your colleague.

[inman]

I think that you have made my point for me. Your company has employed you as a developer and made a significant investment in terms of buying software licences and equipping you with the tools to do your job. My hypothesis is that the presence of such a compiler on your machine places you at the more technical end of the scale.

I am not familiar with the latest MS tools but I can relate from experience that Borland ship a free version of their JBuilder tools in edition to the paid for professional and enterprise versions. Anyone could download the free version to evaluate it but it wouldn't necessarily mean that they were a developer.

The comment about server versions of software was more to do with having Oracle server installed on your machine (or on your development server) for development rather than Access.

Is there a server version of C or Perl? How about Python or Ruby?

There aren't necessarily 'server' versions of these languages but you can differentiate between someone who installs Perl in order to get a third party app running and someone who codes using the language and understands it.

I used to help the test team install the command line version of the MS Visual C compiler in order to support an automated test tool. They didn't code in C but were technically expert at automated testing. I also set up a Perl environment in order for colleagues to test a Wiki solution that was based on Perl. They didn't do a scrap of coding but were able to do a technical evaluation of the product.