Are there any programmers reading this forum?

I'm interested in possibly hiring a competent programmer with thorough knowledge of
spam, botnets, email, filters and such. I thought this would be a good place to
post an inquiry.

I would prefer private contact, but I can't seem to figure out how that's
implemented in these forums.

PM (Personal Message) Fred. A person can just click on your name in that post, be taken to your profile and one of the options is to send a personal message. Or email you at your registered address if you had that option enabled - but you don't.

Alright... I think I found the right place to turn those on.
So they should now be able to "Personal Message" me.

Thanks.

So I guess there are no savvy programmers in this forum.

OR no savvy programmers that want to respond to a cattle call,
OR no savvy programmers that want/need a different job.

I would think that now that you have tried to shame any savvy programmers on the forum into contacting you, the number of responses will dwindle.

Although it would appear that you don't want to publish the actual end result being looked for, let me take you back many, many years ..... when a 10MHz 386 was a 'massive' upgrade for a point of reference. I was asked to develop a 'complete' work-order status application. At that meeting, I took notes on what everyone wanted, added in what I thought was 'really' needed. Left that office, went to work. FoxBase running under Microsoft XENIX, I and two others spent a couple of weeks bashing code to do all of this ... work-order number, status, equipment data, manhours, parts on order, on and on.

Went to the next meeting on this, hard-copy printouts in hand, a couple of terminals in place for the hands-on experience. Then went through a couple of hours of crap like .... this should have been placed 'here' on the screen .. where's 'this' bit of data ... it takes too long to run .... the screen I put into place for the production manager included the suggestion to 'go get a cup of coffee' (the coffee machine being a few hundred feet from his office, the intent being a hint that it was going to take a while to crunch the data) was met with I don't drink coffee!

It was at that point that I tossed out a number of blank sheets of paper, gave the command that all the people involved with the output draw me a damned picture of just what the 'output screen' should look like, where and what data was to be displayed, etc. etc. etc. The guidance was .. when they came to a concurrence on just what the end result should be, then contact me again with those exact results and I'd give them what they wanted. I pretty much do the same now when I get a request to design a web-page.

Your query here tells nothing of just what all the suggested expertise is supposed to be needed/used for. You make no mention of any platform or OS requirements. You don't mention real-time analysis or trying to deal with parsing a multi-megabit database. You don't mention resources .. your systems or not.

Just a few things that cross my mind when looking at your initial query.

No, I thought it would be in bad decorum to go into details
in the forum... and bring down the wrath of the forum moms.
Yet, it seemed logical to me it would be a good place to
possibly find someone.

Thanks for your post... it was a good read!



Yes, I can understand ...

I didn't think it was a cattle call, though.

More likely you're right on the second point: they're all working.

I did post to several "jobs" sites, and get the same story.
They're all working.

I'll add "programmers" to my list ... Like doctors, dentists,
painters, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, electricians, drivers,
lawyers, gardeners, roofers, locksmiths --
They're all employed and too busy.

Wonder why there's so much whining and moaning from the politicians
and left-wing media on how "bad" unemployment is --
yet can't seem to find anyone available for work.

Thanks for your post.

Yeah, I am in desperate need of someone to remodel my bathroom, but the two I have asked, are not enthusiastic (it is a century old house). Everybody is too busy, but what I am afraid of is that the ones who aren't, won't be competent!

And, as Wazoo said, anyone who is competent is going to want a lot more detail on what you expect the end result to be before they would even be interested - for both time needed and interest in the project (a Mac guy isn't going to be interested in working on a Vista machine; some might be interested in defensive programming - others might not touch anything aggressive with a ten foot pole, for instance).

Though, in my experience, people just like to gripe rather than work with you on what they really want and how it could be accomplished. Of course, I don't have many credentials so when I do something and it doesn't do what they wanted, it is because I don't know what I am doing, not because they didn't tell me what kind of information they wanted. So maybe I am crankier about it than even Wazoo. <g>

Miss Betsy

For starters, a majority of those folks don't actually understand the (U.S.) Government supplied unemployment numbers, much less know what those numbers actually indicate ... worse, what those numbers don't include. For instance, I myself, although unemployed, am not included in that datum. Why not? I have never applied for unemployment. Add in all those folks that have ran out of unemployment benefits, yet still haven't found a paying job. Those folks aren't counted in the statistic. Basically, this statistical data is derived from those 'applying' for unemployment benefits .. this measurment parameter being about the only thing that can be 'easily' tracked. There isn't an actual direct correlation between this statistic and the number of actual/real people out of work.

"Finding workers" these days can be comical. Human Resource folks that have no idea what the actual job requires, so now using their computers with some "matching" software applications that compare the job description to resume content. The more words that match, the more 'qualified' the candidate is. That the same descriptions, examples, definitions actually existed is never noted, because the computer software only looked for direct matches of the 'important' words.

Example: a soldier applying for a civilian position that would basically end up with him sitting at the same desk.

Job Description: Must be able to read and understand schematics, drawings, and technical manuals.

Resume entry; Troubleshoots and repairs equipment and material to a depot level using Test, Measurement, and Diagnostic Equipment and Procedures using manufacturer provided documentation, provided education, and my 15+ years of previous field experience maintaining and troubleshooting electronic equipment and systems.

End result: Not Qualified to perform the job he'd actually been performing for a couple of years. Human Resources representative pointed directly to the lack of his capability to "read and understand schematics and drawings" .. yet had no answer when asked "how the hell else would I be able to troubleshoot this crap?"

Stopping before a rant starts <g>

Another problem is that many jobs (like the one you are advertising and my bathroom remodel) require trained, experienced people. Many of the people out of work are from manufacturing jobs. They do give them retraining, but someone right out of school is not going to be able to do either job without, at least, an experienced supervisor. And, they don't pay anything like the manufacturing job so people are training for what they hope will be comparable pay.

Miss Betsy