I guess that depends on your powers of observation. But even if you trust in your powers of observation, it is an excellent opportunity to compare what you observe with what they say. If things don't mesh, you have to wonder.

Agreed. And remember you're only seeing a little snapshot in time, so there are probably quite a few questions you could ask regardless of your observational powers.

Do you eat lunch together? Is dress always this casual? How often do you refresh your equipment? How often do people work in groups vs solo? Do you encourage working in pairs? How geographically distributed are project teams, typically? Do people take personal calls at their desks? How do you manage shared resources like conference rooms? At my last job, everyone stood up and belted show tunes for a 1/2 hour at tea--do you have such a program?

Glad you liked it. I thought it was pretty neat too. :-)

I'm about to start working from home. Although my current commute is only 1.5 miles. Heavenly. :-)

Yes, I totally agree. Learning is learning. But the pitfall is when the learner just learns the tool but misses the concept that generated the tool. I see this all the time. Knowledge and wisdom need to go hand in hand.

Well you can't have all 1 or the other. Everything in the world requires balance, and education is the same. You can't have tool-knowledge without concept-knowledge and vice versa. One without the other is useless.

It isn't that you shouldn't have those books. My point is mainly that once you read them and learn the tools, they just gather dust. I just went back and amended my post with an additional sentence. Basically, most of the books that teach tools are read once, Google later. Once I know about a tool, it is usually a lot faster to quickly search for a bit of refresher knowledge than to thumb through the book looking for some specific page.

Sounds like you need a kindle :D

I recommend the DX for technical users.

Funny you should mention that. I'm definitely buying more electronic books (Kindle app for iPad). Somehow I feel better paying less for the electronic version. But I still prefer a hard copy for the classics. :-)

In the process of weeding down our possessions in general, I've been ditching a lot of books.

Kindle on the iPad definitely works, however the batteried nature of the device makes Kindle on Mac and Kindle on well, a Kindle, more useful for certain things.

I usually actually read on Kindle on iPhone.

Real estate costs so much, I'd pay more for ebooks than the dead tree version. That is an expensive bookshelf to keep.

Thanks for the tip! Will do.

I would highly recommend that you don't lie. As a person who has hired for several positions and who also has a good BS detector, a discovered lie is always a deal breaker. It puts your entire candidacy into question and you're resume goes straight into the trash can.

I can understand if I was caught out. I have had experience (but no real-world experience) in ecommerce.

I'd be able to answer all your questions, deliver results, learn anything I didn't know in a few days.

Would it be that bad in this case?

Yes. I am currently hiring and have a candidate that is actually perfect for the job. I will not hire him. Why? Because on his resume he claimed ownership for some very impressive projects, and in the interview it became clear that he was in a very junior role in those projects. As my dad taught me, "Do not lie, cheat, steal, or associate with those who do"

It would be better to be honest about your experience, and if you feel you are lacking in some area, get some experience in the area you need while you are looking for a job.

I wouldn't lie about my role in a project. I'd consider that to be different to be honest.

In this particular example, I was looking for reactions for general skills as opposed to to specific roles within a project. My apologies, I should've been clear about that.

A lie is a lie is a lie, no matter how small.

Everyone lies. You lie - I guarantee it. There is such a thing as acceptable lying. You probably lie every day. If you have kids then you certainly lie constantly about small things.

The question is, for any individual, what do you consider an acceptable lie? What are your limits?

For me, lying on a resume is not acceptable. For others clearly it is fine.

A lie is a lie is a lie, in context, means that a small lie (i.e. claiming to know bash even though you never used any of the nontrivial features of bash) is not acceptable.

When you start hiring people, you will quickly realize how many people claim expertise, or even awareness, of languages / systems that they dont know about. e.g. everyone who has used awk '{print $1}' claims to be an awk expert. And its kinda sad that people see such small things as acceptable.

In the particular field I'm in (radio astronomy), I usually have two choices when hiring. 1) Hire someone with radio astronomy knowledge and teach them to be a good software engineer, or 2) Hire a good software engineer and teach them a bit about radio astronomy. My point being, you don't have to know everything. From my point of view as the person doing the hiring, you simply have to demonstrate a capacity to learn coupled with a well-groundedness in the basic concepts required for the job.

A most excellent book, indeed.

Tie that in with "more cowbell" for the killer Christopher Walken App.

This is cool. An interesting tidbit. We actually used Logo as a programming metaphor when creating our telescope observation software for the Green Bank Telescope (http://www.gb.nrao.edu/gbt/) in Python. The observation software has been in operation for about 8 years now and has been very successful.