I read a blog post from Paul Graham a while ago and it’s stuck with me since then. In it, he states that hiring programmers proficient in “esoteric” languages means you’ll most likely end up with a better caliber of programmer.

The reason is that people who learn a non-standard language are learning because they like to program and the standard languages aren’t necessarily the best ones available. These people go out of their way to learn a new language for personal enjoyment, not because they have to know it to get a job. Graham calls it the “Python Paradox”: > more <

I don’t want this to sound like a political blog and it’s not directed at a specific political party. As usual it’s an observation from my personal life.

As readers should know, I am sending out resumes because I plan on leaving military service next year. Since I won’t be retiring from the military, it behooves me to get a federal civilian job so my years in the military will still count towards my retirement. In that light, I’ve been perusing USAJobs.gov, the “official” web site for federal service. > more <

Well, I figure it’s about time to harvest the power of the Internet and see what happens.

I plan on getting out of the Navy next June and so I’m starting to get my resume in order and see where to send it. Naturally I’m looking at Monster, et al. but for many large Internet job sites, it’s like looking for a job in the classified ads: you’re just one of several thousand resumes mass mailed to prospective employers. It’s even worse now in the digital age; it takes nothing to email a resume so a lot of people essentially spam employers in the hopes of “shotgunning a job”. > more <