I recently received a link to a job ad from a coworker, published on a major Croatian job market website. It was so stupid I wrote this.
Why was it stupid? Simply put, the amount of snobbery in it was palpable even over the wire.
I won’t link or reveal any names to protect the idiots innocent, but here it is, paraphrased (emphasis mine):
Advanced knowledge of .NET framework (C#) or C/C++ is required.
Desktop/system developers have priority. Knowledge of PHP will be considered a flaw. If you thought about bragging about your web project, it’s better if you don’t. If you can’t name 10 classes from .NET framework or STL off the top of your head, disregard the ad.
Did your bullshit detector explode? It certainly should have..
This is just a symptom of a much wider phenomenon I’ve noticed in IT. Of course, it may be prevalent in other areas, but I don’t know much about those. I’ve noticed that people always assume that the technology (language, framework etc.) they are using is superior to all others. Implicitly, this means that they are superior to those who use other technologies. This is obviously utter nonsense and shows a particular lack of maturity. By maturity, I mean the kind of maturity that makes you stop saying things like “Why do you like that band, the band I’m listening to is so much better, you should like what I like.”
You know, high-school stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I fell into this trap myself more than once. But then I grew up and stopped thinking like an eejit.
Unfortunately, this is something I’ve seen happen with all kinds of developers. Initially I thought this only happens to .NET developers because they were the only ones I knew from work. I assumed they are considering open source technologies to be inferior. Unfortunately, that’s not true (well, mostly): plenty of open source developers have the same attitute about their .NET brothers in keyboards.
And yes, in both cases it is a sign of immaturity, regardless of age.
But let’s talk about this particular case. From what I’ve seen, it stems from the fact that system/desktop developers consider websites a child’s play. Usually because they’ve never made one. It is true that web does have a lower barrier to entry than a complex desktop application, but does that imply that anyone who creates websites is a hack? “Knowing PHP is a flaw”? Oh how I would like to see how these people compare to someone like Mark Story or Chris Hartjes. I mean that must be fun.
It was my impression that being proficient in several languages is a huge plus, in both programming languages and spoken languages. However, that information may not reach you if your head is so deep up your arse that your ears are blocked by shite. The advantage is, at least they’ve given themselves away as a company to be avoided.