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B any day!
A degree is not that important. Experience is more valuable, and if he writes good clean code, it doesn't matter how he got to do so.
Anyway - self taught programmers often know more and have more experience than those who have taken the degree - because they are more interested and seek out the knowledge themselves, and often program a lot in their spare time.
People who have taken a degree in computing may have done so because they have heard that there is good money to be made and lots of jobs, not necessairly because they are that interested in it.
My 5 cents (being a B type myself!)
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Johnny J. wrote: Anyway - self taught programmers often know more and have more experience than those who have taken the degree - because they are more interested and seek out the knowledge themselves, and often program a lot in their spare time.
In my experience it's better to stay a mile away from these people unless your job is very repetitive. Put them 3 inches out of their waters and they fail miserably, while a good scientific trained mind applies the same rigor and forma mentis to every problem, even the ones he hasn't faced before. And in fact my self-taught colleagues and ex-colleagues are the ones who write the most awful code in existance... an example? In a structure there are these... things? (they had otehr names luckily, not x y w z).
...
x___0 As Long
y____0 As Long
w_0 As Long
z__0 As Long
x___1 As Long
y____1 As Long
w_1 As Long
z__1 As Long
x___2 As Long
y____2 As Long
w_2 As Long
z__2 As Long
x___3 As Long
y____3 As Long
w_3 As Long
z__3 As Long
x___4 As Long
y____4 As Long
w_4 As Long
z__4 As Long
x___5 As Long
y____5 As Long
w_5 As Long
z__5 As Long
x___6 As Long
y____6 As Long
w_6 As Long
z__6 As Long
x___7 As Long
y____7 As Long
w_7 As Long
z__7 As Long
...
Beacuse array are so old-style... and they are the ones who cram the application logic AND hardware management directly in the UI.
And that is the sme thing I saw in my previous experiences with self-taught programmers. Of course there are thousands of graduated programmers who do much worse than this example and just as many perfectly good self-taught who can teach me on even and odd days. But the trend and my experience had taught me to be wary.
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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We have different experiences then. Personally, I ONLY have bad experiences with graduates right out of school. They know absolultely NOTHING. Whatever they're teaching in school, it's not programming.
The last one I met got a job programming Dynamics AX, without knowing anything about it and only having done a small console application in C# over a 2 week period in school.
Needless to say, he failed miserably, and as far as I know, he quickly stopped working with programming.
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Johnny J. wrote: right out of school.
I wasn't considering them of course, I was considering 3-5 years experience from graduates of course.
A green programmer is a green programmer whatever title or certification he does possess.
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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As I finished the college I was trained by a guy, 8 months later I was asked by our end customer to correct his programs and get ride of the messed code / crap functions / clean the corpses and eat the spaghetti.
So yes, most fresh graduated are inexperienced but, on the other side, most of them have learn clean methodologies and how it is supposed to be. They might not be familiar with the libraries, language or other stuff like that, but their level of abstraction and adaptation should not be underestimated so fast.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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- I'm failing to see where the requirement of degree X or Y comes from? If someone knows his stuff, he knows his stuff, no degree will change that. I've seen .Net certified consultants who couldn't write a decent line of code.
- Talking the talk is one thing, but you do need to let them perform a practical test. Let them right a small program with some basic skills like reading in a database and creating a small ASCII text report with it or something. Drill down on the how and why they did things.
- But the most important question you need to ask yourself is: Will this person fit the team ? We declined perfectly good technical candidates, even the best, just because of their attitude.
good luck. 
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A - a degree gives you a solid foundation to build on. B might be building his code on sand and it might look good now but collapse tomorrow.
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From your description none of them have any managerial experience. I'd still go with B because he was decently exposed to real work environments and real problems. In fact -- I would not hire a fresh graduate for a managerial position. People need to raise to the top taking 1-2 steps at the time, not 10-20.
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No contest - B
"This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedivere. Explain to me again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes"
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When it comes to software, degrees don't mean much. Sure, they can gauge the candiate's ability to employ logical thinking, but that's pretty much it. If B is a good programer, hire B. Unless you want the candidate to optimize your algorithms (instead of actually writing usable software), academia doesn't mean much.
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I guess, it depends on the budget, your (team) willingness to train/educate them and productivity start time expectation.
Budget:
If you get B, a already productive developer, he might be more expensive.
If you get A, might be less investment, just your time investment to get him where you need.
Time:
Sometimes, there is no time for training and B could become even more productive to your expectation if he is guided with a senior developer.
If I REALLY liked both of them, I would get both of them and pair them so they work together and train them and make them sweating blood while they are coding
One of them might leave, but you would have a backup or you would split & promote both of them eventually.
Good Luck
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I always go with the person who demonstrates outside interests in extending their abilities by doing their own development projects.
In this case however, the description of Candidate B shows symptoms of being a "prima-donna", which could be very disruptive over all.
If the position requires someone who can teach and mentor other developers than Candidate A would also not fit your requirements, though he or she may be the better fit in terms of personality in your organization.
As a result, both of your candidates have potential negatives against their hiring and both are equal in terms of the negatives.
You can do one of two things here...
1) Interview several more candidates to either get a better fit or determine if the current two warrant further investment of consideration.
2) If you want to make a choice between your current candidates than follow my suggestions below
which I have used for a 100% success rate during my own interviewing experiences.
A) Develop a basic, oral, technical exam that has questions based upon the minimal
requirements of the position as well as your minimal, overall, technical requirements.
The idea is not to always get the correct answer but to see how each candidate answers
each question. If candidate A answers less questions correctly but providers a much
better response in handling him or herself this will indicate a personality that is
more adept at handling difficult issues. If candidate B answers the same questions
more correctly and well than you also have to understand this more experienced
candidate's capabilities. Are they just good at taking oral exams or do the responses
sound as if the person feels comfortable with the questions due to an interest in the
profession.
B) Prior to the oral exam, ensure that you make each candidate feel as comfortable as
possible within the interview environment. Open up the session by getting the
candidate to talk about themselves by trying to see if both can find some common
ground such as a shared interest. The idea here is to go against the common practice
of attempting to intimidate candidates thinking this is the best way to see how they
react under stress. This is a fool's way of interviewing prospective personnel and
only demonstrates a company that has no caring for the person itself. Such interviews
are more in line with military-style interrogations than anything close to a session
where a need for an understanding of the person in front of you is critical.
C) If after you have given a candidate the oral examination you feel that he or she has
answered well, has felt comfortable with the questioning, and has answered your
minimum required questions correctly change back to a longer discussion about the
candidate themselves. Find out if they like software development enough to do it on
the side and if so what projects they enjoy working on. Ask what type of equipment
they have for their personnel development projects. Ask what other interests they
have, which can be a key factor for a good employee. For example if a candidate
enjoys reading about the sciences, though this may sound great up front it can also
indicate a person with a very clinical personality, which often does not mesh well
with a team. If he or she likes to read science-fiction this could indicate a person
with imagination. If history, this could indicate a candidate who enjoys research.
Both of these traits could do very well for you since both would bring to the table an
enthusiasm to get the job done.
The idea behind such an interview style is to get as complete an understanding of the person before you in an interview. And do this by not making them feel threatened but by getting them to open up to you honestly and fairly. By doing this you yourself will get a feeling of who you would be more comfortable working with. You may find that candidate A in your situation may be the better team member than the self-taught developer. However, my experience it is that self-taught professionals are far superior in many cases over the university trained person since they have real world development skills and personalities to match.
Two last suggestions. Women are not that inclined these days to enter the computer profession simply because the nature of the field has encouraged them to ignore it as a potential career path.
If you interview a women of any age, ensure that when she enters the room you stand up as a sign of courtesy and respect. Then ask if you could get her some coffee or water. Never address a lady by her first name simply because this is what young people may do or it is the style today. Ladies today still respect traditional courtesies afforded them even if they are slightly surprised by it.
For a male candidate do not try to get overly "chummy" with them, no matter the rapport you may develop. This will only appear suspicious to many, even to men within the same culture. Be professional, friendly, and above all courteous.
If you have any further questions on interviewing techniques, you may contact me at my business email below...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
support@blackfalconsoftware.com
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B will tend to stick around longer ... because he has no degree.
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Obviously, the one without the degree.
Requires less investment in the short term, is immediatly productive and - because he has no degree - you get away with paying him less.
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Depends upon whether I'm going to be hiring a junior or senior dev and you don't specify. You don't really say what kind of role the candidate would be going into. e.g. support, green-field development.
I'd be more inclined to hire developer B because of more experience, but experience doesn't mean as much as people make out when technologies keep changing every 5-10 years.
Consider, every software development team has its own 'culture'. That is to say, their own way of deployment, monitoring and managing faults, source control, standard coding habits etc.
Define what your own culture is and interview both against that criteria. That might be more informative than interviewing against qualifications or any other types of arbitrary indicators you've dug up off the internet.
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Well, since you quite obviously WANT me to say B, I'll say B. Happy?
Now, let's see if we can make this a bit fairer...
- Does Candidate A also know "knows all of the sorts, trees, and hashes and answer all of your questions quickly under pressure."
- Does he also "write extremely clean and readable code, follows SOLID principles, write great unit tests and has good knowledge of Dev-Ops things."
Truth,
James
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It has been quite unarguably revealed to me that my windows tablet cannot survive a fall of 750cm, if bouncing screen-first off a hotel central-heating radiator on the way down.
Points to consider:
1. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
2. It could run programs developed for windows, and those are way more important than the operating system -- I don't buy machines because I want windows; I buy them because I want the programs that non-OS developers have written (who the Hell spends any time doing anything with an operating system?)
(Oh. Sorry. That's a stupid question, really; the response being: Anyone who's installed any windows version higher than weven spends a huge amount of time having to do stuff with the operating system, because that was the penultimate phase in the win-OS evolution, after which the operating system became more important than users and what users need).
3. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
4. I haven't connected to my network back-uppy stuff since Sunday, and everything since then will take a Hell of a lot of effort to recover.
5. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
6. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
7. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
8. Now I have to look for a new tablet (preferably one that will let me choose which OS to install).
9. It's &%$#@!* winio, which drives me up the &%$#@!* wall, it's so bad.
Hmm. I'm glad I vented. It's made things very clear.
It's time to celebrate!!!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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have you tried one of these
Mark_Wallace wrote: &%$#@!* winio
I hear its getting a bit of press lately... 
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I'm still trying to see the correlation between winio (I presume this is windows 10) and bouncing the poor bloody thing off a radiator.
Blaming the OS because the screen broke when you dropped the tablet seems a bit of a stretch to me.
I would refrain from chucking the tablet around when you get you new android tablet, try a samsung it will keep you lap/hands warm in those cold winter evenings.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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It's a pros and cons thing.
i.e. I now don't have a tablet that runs programs built to run on windows, which is nice to have -- but, on the plus side, I now don't have a machine that runs &%$#@!* winio.
The pro far outweighs the cons. I should have thrown the bloody thing off a cliff a year ago.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: my windows tablet cannot survive a fall of 750cm
You mean you dropped it from a height of ~2.5 floors (stories, for USians)? 
Very few consumer electronic devices could survive that!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Whoa! You guys really Don't know metric!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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750cm = 7.5m = ~8.2 yards. Given a height of ~3m per floor, that would give the 2.5 floors that I mentioned.
Perhaps you meant 75cm = ~29.5 inches?
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Perhaps you meant 75cm
Whoa! Us guys really don't know metric
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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You're a hiring manager. You are responsible for picking a candidate who will be in a long-term position with the company and who you know you will be able to mold/teach. Both candidates are friendly and willing to learn. But there's a slight challenge.
Candidate A writes extremely clean and readable code, follows SOLID principles, writes great unit tests, and overall has the software engineering side of things down, but he knows nothing about algorithms or data structures aside from just using what is provided in the standard libraries.
Candidate B knows all of the sorts, trees, and hashes like the back of his hand and is able to whiteboard them out no problem and answer all of your questions quickly under pressure. However, Candidate B has no experience with object-oriented design, SOLID principles, has a few demo apps which are only procedural in nature, and has never written a unit test in his/her life.
Both candidates are friendly and both seem like they have potential to learn.
Your firm uses object-oriented programming in either C# or Java and produces applications that must meet a efficiency standard and also meet OOP design guidelines.
Who do you hire and why?
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