Finding good talent....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In article <1992Jan24.045832.12724@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>In article <1992Jan18.031656.27671@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
>jmason2@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Jamie Mason) writes:
>|I would say that a good ways of finding hackers are...
>|
>|	- Log on at 12am.  Do a "who".  Do the same thing at 4am, 10am,
>|2pm and 6pm.  Do this when there are no assignments due within the newt
>|few days.  Anyone who appears in "who" at all 4 times is a hacker,
>|or is *you* looking for them...
>|
>|	- Look for someone playing nethack at 4am the night before an exam.
>|
>|	- Go to the cafeteria and look for the people who scream
>|"Foo!" amongst each other, and talk about computers amongs themselves at
>|the lunch table, rather than talking to the attractive people of the
>|opposite sex at the table next to them...  :-)
>|
>|	- Look for someone who has not only modified their dotfiles,
>|but has written a bunch of shell scripts which are impossible to read...
>|Using sed, awk, and backquoting into shell variables the same same
>|one-line script.
>|
>|      * Look for CS Seniors who have written their resumes using troff and
>|        are finding, uh, creative ways to get output since the LaserWriters
>|        are off-limits to non-faculty.
>|
>|      * Hell, look for someone using troff.
>
>These latter two are useful litmus tests for misc.jobs.[offered|resumes]
>
>Hey I like these!
>The nethack one is a bit marginal, but maybe useful.
>These are a little on the elementary side.
>
>More, more...
>
>"I would never belong to a club that would have me for a member."
>				--Groucho Marx and Woody Allen
>
>--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
>  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
>  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene


Ok, here are some suggestions for spotting talent:

* True hackers don't use TeX. HCI and formal methods people use TeX; hackers
  use troff.

* Hackers don't use csh. Ideally they use rc, if they have a version, or
  sh. Csh is deemed baroque and silly.

* The only books on a hacker's bookshelf are Bourne, Leffler and (possibly)
  K&R and Stroustrup. Even these are basically there for backup, since
  the hacker has memorised them anyway. TNHD might be found on the shelves
  of those who are still able to go into bookshops...

* If someone flinches when System V is mentioned the chances are he's a good
  hacker.

* Anyone who can speak UUCP G-protocol is definitely a hacker of the 
  highest calibre.

* Look at the .exrc. If you find macros along the lines of 
  "       look at the manual page for the word the cursor is on 
  map ]m mzdePo^[i:!man ^[pa ^V|/usr/bin/less^["zdd@z`z
  then the chances are you've found a hacker. Of course the hacker is
  unlikely to ever use this macro, but writing it was fun.

* True hackers don't have home computers. They just stay in the office all
  day.

* Anyone who can remember more than 50 numeric IP addresses (not including
  easy ones like uunet, wuarchive, gatekeeper, export) is probably fairly 
  talented.

* Real hackers never use the Mail command. They telnet to the SMTP port.

* Most hackers try gnuemacs. Once.

* Hackers don't like AIX; many don't even believe that it's really Unix.


	 ...Pete (about 1/2 of these apply)
--
*Peter Fenelon -- Research Associate -- Software Safety Assessment Procedures*
Dept. of Computer Science, University of York, York, Y01 5DD (+44/0)904 433388
EMAIL: pete@minster.york.ac.uk (or pete%minster.york.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk)
Quote: ``There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas'' Half Man Half Biscuit