Programmers and megalomania

In one of my articles ( How to play “programming” or the path of a programmer ), I wrote about the five stages of a programmer’s development, and here I called the fourth stage “Megalomania”. A couple of months have passed since then, and I am increasingly convinced that this is the true truth! Actually, once again, I was convinced of this regrettable fact yesterday, when I decided to get into freelancing, I paid attention to the studio that had just appeared, where I was called to work as a web programmer for a fairly decent salary. My relationship with novice studios is a separate topic, it always attracts me to everything “beginner”, apparently the organizational needs make themselves felt ... but the article is not about that, so, having come for an interview, I met their programmer, let's call it ... well let it be Vitaly.

Interview

The interview was conducted by the Director-General, but Vitaly, as a person who knows, was present. And it was immediately clear that the initiative to hire another programmer, was obviously not from him. Vitaly held himself like an eagle, in a society of sparrows, proudly sticking a white i-pod earphone in one ear, looked down on me, occasionally typing something on a mobile phone. After answering general questions about former workplaces, experience, education, life priorities and the rest of garbage, the director went away somewhere, giving, as he said, the two specialists to communicate. Vitaly did not take initiatives, but I, as a person quite sociable, decided to start first.

Intimate talk

First of all, I was interested in what technologies the studio uses.
- PHP - my interlocutor proudly replied, and it is useful to print something in the mobile.
In general, I even guessed without it that they hardly make websites in assembler, so I decided to clarify. Then Vitaly realized that he would not be able to get rid of the conversation, and condescended to explain. Looking at me like an idiot and making a vague gesture with his hand, he added:
- Php, mysql, html .
Of course, this is already something, but again, I was not at all interested in something ... Then I asked a clarifying question about using CodeIgniter for I love this framework. Vitali chuckled, and he said that he does not use “ KeEmEs OK ”, because he likes to write all the code himself, and not to use someone else's ... No, well, I can understand when people do not use ready-made cms, and write their own ... but first: for ordinary corporate sites, which the studio does, for this is a waste of time, and secondly: Vitaly, blah, who, who told you that CodeIgniter is a cms !? This exclamation just broke out of my chest, but I suppressed it and changed the subject by asking about jquery. I was in for a pleasant surprise, Vitaly knows what jquery is, but I am sure that he owns javascript at a sufficient level, so that “we do n’t use other people's, raw, unreliable libraries ”.
In general, during the conversation, I learned that they do not have such a position as a “Project Manager”, because “ We don’t need him, ” and Vitaly, besides the programmer, performs the functions of the layout designer, system administrator, and even the administrator of the web server. I was particularly interested in the latter, it turned out that Mega Vitaly successfully managed virtual hosting from a masterhost, at the Professional tariff.

Conclusion

I do not want to say that Vitali is a bad programmer, no matter how he worked, but in the three months of its existence, the studio made five sites, and he made these sites. Let them be crookedly crooked, let them be full of sql injections, even now, Vitaly does not understand that he is not yet a real programmer, and there are a lot of people like him. It is not enough to learn a programming language, not enough to make a couple of sites, you also need to improve, constantly increase your knowledge, read books and articles, communicate with other programmers, do not look for competitors or rivals in them, you need to learn from others, and in our profession, always there is something to learn, probably that's why we love her so much.
')

PS

While writing the article, they called from the studio and said that I could start working when it would be convenient for me ... Apparently Vitaly’s voice was not decisive. I referred to other suggestions, and took a couple of days ... to think. And there is something to think about. Will I be comfortable working with such a person, will we be able to get along in the same office, and, in the end, that it is more precious to me, money or nerves?