Today I was asked to give a technical interview to a candidate which is kind of a new thing for me.  He had already been screened on the "what's an abstract class and how do you do <insert something here /> in ASP.NET" kind of questions.  So I got to have fun and go through some more interesting topics.

Some of the topics I was bringing up, I see as fundamental to being a good developer.  I didn't realize it until afterwards, but not one question I asked him was technology-specific.  Which is usually the kinds of topics I prefer to focus my own time on.

I started out with some OOD principles like SRP, OCP, LSP, DIP, etc.  Unfortunately he had never heard of any of them.  So I went into explaining each one for him because, if nothing else, I figured at least I could test my own self in my explanations and maybe he could even learn a little something too. 

Then I started talking about just some basic unit testing, which he didn't currently practice.  So I really didn't even bother to get into TDD/Mock Objects.  It was probably a mistake for me to try and go over IoC/DI and xDD practices after that, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.  No dice. 

So, I guess this is my first time experiencing for myself the challenge that many of my fellow bloggers talk about when they say how hard it can be to find great hackers. 

My final question (which probably should've been my first) was "So, who's your favorite bloggers?".  :D

Seriously though, whether or not a developer is involved with the community I think says a lot about them.  There is certainly nothing wrong with not being involved in the developer community, but I think it can be a good distinguisher.  (I think that's a word...  :P )

Speaking of jobs, if you are looking for some short-term work, Joe is looking for a few good developers.