Programmers are misunderstood, and way to fix it, is to setup a respectful paid internship, or simply pay the potential hires for learning and volunteering.

Some companies ask big questions, made up by graduates still upset, that had to try to understand the lousy textbooks.

Which makes them invent dumb questions about data compression, on the subject of stuffing a bus with ping-pong balls.

A question of reading the same white-papers and textbooks, and not of whether or not a person is actually a programmer.

Others, have fake interviews to bring in their cousins, and brothers in law.

Some still want a definition of OOP in the shape Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Inheritance, Association, Aggregation, and Composition.

Which creates slow, broken by design, late and over-budget, software with irreparable leaky abstractions.

What it really is, is teachers teaching “textbook crap”, without really knowing if anything there works in reality and long term.

The programmers, the technical leads, they all go along wit it, because your interviews ensure it is not about the project, but about the paycheck.

And if you have any doubts, and are far too used to all the broken and insecure software around you.

Think about the idea that swept programming offices not so long ago, the open layout office, where everyone worked in the same room.

A normal person requires time to enter a programming system, it is not just about concepts in working memory.

But really using our fine navigational skills, to start memorizing all the interesting places of a new city.

To distract or pull a programmer out of that, is a mistake so foolish; as annoying your car mechanic, pilot, dentist, and surgeon.

There is no such thing as a programming interview, and every programmer must get their own office, a mute button, and do not disturb sign.

They need walks, access to a park, cheerful atmosphere, friendly employees, that don’t do drugs, don’t drink, and above all never lack in class.

Your new hire, if they enjoy programming, are no different from Alert Einstein, he was just a celebrity.

If you brought him into a room, where he had to answer your, passionless, arrogant questions, handed down by insecure employees.

Then, if he absolutely had to, he would get the job, and every paycheck in it, as you imploded the company with more of your arrogance.

But a healthy person without any pressure, doesn’t answer the hard questions, because it takes two or three of these, before they realize they don’t want to be there.

Truth is, it is a rare interview where the potential hire, isn’t actually interviewing the people running the interview.

The best programmer, you can hire, is the young, the willing to study every stupid meeting, to truly comprehend the programming experience, in full.

They need to get paid a lot, and they need mentors, and ticket to every hackaton and hacking and programming conference there is.

They are as bright as the day, and your respect, class and kindness, will make them shine as bright as the sun.

As to “knowing” programming there is no such thing, you are not even allowed to know multiple languages to keep the one as sharp as possible.

Every new framework is a learning experience, take SvelteKit for example, the square bracket slugs, +page.server.js filename…

The flow of data from the server hook, to the server page, to the UI, all of this is new, strange, and utterly necessary.

Angular, Vue, and React, are done, they need to be rewritten into a compiler form, and by that time something better than svelte will come around.

More than that, programmers learning as they go is the highest of programming traditions, and the less one knows, the sharper and more audacious they become.

Again, the new are the rebels you must respect, and you have to pay them outlandish amounts so that they will trust you.

They will reinvent the HyperCard, the Wiki and the Notebook, the Distributed Database, Even The Text Adventure, and Apps and the Spreadsheet in one; on principle, sometimes daily.

You only really have one, interview question to ask.

Because, there is no such thing as knowing programming - there is only such a thing, as enjoying it.