In Cargo Cult Network Administration, Esther Schindler in her weblog for CIO Magazine discusses an interesting problem that is similar to that of hiring and Interviewing Programmers. This is by no means a new idea, but it did get me thinking again. The example has to do with network administrators, but I’ve seen exactly the same behavior in developers – as I’m sure we all have.

… the dangerous stage of career development is the the cargo-cult sysadmins, who don’t know why what they’re doing works (or doesn’t work). But, because the magic worked in the past, they continue to repeat the same actions, under the presumption that it will continue to work.

Seeing people in action can help to reduce the possibility of hiring one of the Cargo Cult, but it’s sometimes difficult to see the difference between someone using a pattern or rule of thumb because they understand it and because it works and those doing the same without understanding any of the underlying principles. Often times, you really only find out which one you have is when something doesn’t work and they need to dig in and troubleshoot the problem. Just knowing where to start looking can be a good indication.

As an (only somewhat related) aside, I’m reminded of developers that have little to no understanding of general web principles, such as HTTP. They can do a fine job, but sometimes tracking down what is happening and why that something is happening (whether in your code or in a web framework), it helps to think about the actual interaction between the web browser and web server. Now, this isn’t even fully necessary to be a good web programmer, but I think it distinguishes those who understand what’s going on from those who just guess at (or just take on faith alone) why certain parts of code are being executed.