For many people, one of the most exciting and challenging career choices is computer programming. There are several ways that people can enter the computer programming profession; however, the most popular method has traditionally been the educational route through an educational institution of higher learning such as a college or technical school.

Even though many people think of computer programmers as individuals with a technical background, some programmers enter the computer programming profession without a structured technical background. In addition, after further investigation several interesting facts are uncovered when a profile of the best computer programmers is analyzed.

When observing how the top programmers in the profession work, there are four characteristics that tend to separate the top programmers from the average programmers. These four characteristics are:

1.Creativity.
2.Attention To Detail.
3.Learns New Things Quickly.
4.Works Well With Others.

Creativity.

Being a top computer programmer requires a combination of several unique qualities. One of these qualities is creativity. In its very essence, computer programming is about creating programs to accomplish specific tasks in the most efficient manner. The ability to develop computer code to accomplish tasks takes a certain level of creativity. The top computer programmers tend to have a great deal of creativity, and they have the desire to try things in a variety of ways to produce the best results for a particular situation.

Attention To Detail.

While creativity is important for top programmers an almost opposite quality is needed to produce great computer programs on a consistent basis, this quality is attention to detail. The very nature of computer programming requires the need to enter thousands of lines of computer programming code. What separates many top programmers from average programmers is the ability to enter these lines of code with a minimum amount of errors and just as importantly test the code to catch any unseen errors. Top computer programmers have the necessary attention to detail to successfully create and enter the necessary computer code project after project.

Learns New Things Quickly.

The technology field is constantly changing. Almost daily new technology innovations are being developed that require computer programmers to learn new technology or enhancements to current technology on a regular basis. The top computer programmers are able to learn new technology or enhancements quickly, and then they are able to apply what has been learned to their current and future programming projects in a seamless manner.

Works Well With Others.

There are several differences between top computer programmers and other programmers. However, one of the biggest differences is the ability to work well with others. By its very nature, computer programming requires programmers to spend a lot of time alone developing computer code, but the top computer programmers are able to excel at this aspect of computer programming along with being able to work well with other people.

Regarding computer programmers, the top programmers approach and handle their jobs differently than other programmers, and these differences set them apart from the other programmers. For any average programmers who have the desire to excel as a computer programmer, they must understand and embrace the characteristics of top programmers.

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What are a few unique pieces of career advice that nobody ever mentions?

It’s the eternal conundrum of a hiring manager – you have to hire for every single position in the company without any first-hand experience. How to do it? If you can have a trusted programmer sit in on the interview, that’s ideal, of course. But what if you’re hiring your first programmer? Or what if you’re hiring a freelancer? Or what if company policy dictates that you’re the only person allowed to do the interviewing? Well, in that case, you need some helpful advice and your innate bullshit detector. We questioned programmers and hiring managers and compiled a list of dos and don’ts. Here are some things to ask when interviewing programmers:

Past Experience

Ask the programmer about the biggest disaster of his career so far, and how he handled it. Did he come in at midnight to fix the code? Was he unaware of the problem until someone brought it up? Did someone else handle it?  According to our programmer sources, “Anyone worth their salt has caused a major meltdown. If they say they haven’t, they’re lying. Or very, very green.” Pushing a code with bugs in it isn’t necessarily bad. Not handling it well is bad.

As usual, your biggest asset is not knowing the field, it is knowing people. Asking about career disasters can be uncomfortable, but if the interviewee is experienced and honest then she won’t have a problem telling you about it, and you will get an idea of how she handles mishaps. Even if you don’t understand what the disaster was or how it was fixed, you should be able to tell how honest she’s being and how she handles being put on the spot.

Python and Ruby, each with roots going back into the 1990s, are two of the most popular interpreted programming languages today. Ruby is most widely known as the language in which the ubiquitous Ruby on Rails web application framework is written, but it also has legions of fans that use it for things that have nothing to do with the web. Python is a big hit in the numerical and scientific computing communities at the present time, rapidly displacing such longtime stalwarts as R when it comes to these applications. It too, however, is also put to a myriad of other uses, and the two languages probably vie for the title when it comes to how flexible their users find them.

A Matter of Personality...

That isn't to say that there aren't some major, immediately noticeable, differences between the two programming tongues. Ruby is famous for its flexibility and eagerness to please; it is seen by many as a cleaned-up continuation of Perl's "Do What I Mean" philosophy, whereby the interpreter does its best to figure out the meaning of evening non-canonical syntactic constructs. In fact, the language's creator, Yukihiro Matsumoto, chose his brainchild's name in homage to that earlier language's gemstone-inspired moniker.

Python, on the other hand, takes a very different tact. In a famous Python Enhancement Proposal called "The Zen of Python," longtime Pythonista Tim Peters declared it to be preferable that there should only be a single obvious way to do anything. Python enthusiasts and programmers, then, generally prize unanimity of style over syntactic flexibility compared to those who choose Ruby, and this shows in the code they create. Even Python's whitespace-sensitive parsing has a feel of lending clarity through syntactical enforcement that is very much at odds with the much fuzzier style of typical Ruby code.

For example, Python's much-admired list comprehension feature serves as the most obvious way to build up certain kinds of lists according to initial conditions:

a = [x**3 for x in range(10,20)]
b = [y for y in a if y % 2 == 0]

first builds up a list of the cubes of all of the numbers between 10 and 19 (yes, 19), assigning the result to 'a'. A second list of those elements in 'a' which are even is then stored in 'b'. One natural way to do this in Ruby is probably:

a = (10..19).map {|x| x ** 3}
b = a.select {|y| y.even?}

but there are a number of obvious alternatives, such as:

a = (10..19).collect do |x|
x ** 3
end

b = a.find_all do |y|
y % 2 == 0
end

It tends to be a little easier to come up with equally viable, but syntactically distinct, solutions in Ruby compared to Python, even for relatively simple tasks like the above. That is not to say that Ruby is a messy language, either; it is merely that it is somewhat freer and more forgiving than Python is, and many consider Python's relative purity in this regard a real advantage when it comes to writing clear, easily understandable code.

And Somewhat One of Performance

From Brennan's Blog which is no longer up and running: