you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]StoneCypher -4 points-3 points ago


It's much easier to know whether someone else can learn computer science after you yourself have done it. That gives you a reference platform, in remembering how long it took you.

"The job" is, after all, computer science; if they have a strong theoretical background and if the application they're working on has well documented expectations, they'll need next to no training or spin-up time.

Try reading CLRS or Knuth1, then documenting a moderate sized OSS library project at a serious level. Should take you about a month, maybe a month and a half to do both. At the end, you will be well equipped to judge other people's ability to scale into place, having done it once yourself.

Be sure to take detailed notes on how much time it took you to execute individual steps. There are good timekeeping systems in Personal Software Process (grab the book) or Cocomo II or whatever. Those time taken notes will become invaluable in retrospect. Do not skip them, and do not use an ad-hoc tracking system.