Comment by Chris2048
5 years ago
> Proprietary ide, source control, libs etc
The reason this was a problem was that it meant investment was needed for each of these things, and as such fell behind.
The IDE fell behind most modern IDEs, presumably because it didn't get the budget for it. The source control/ libs where usually modified versions of existing libs, but now needing to be maintained internally to remain compatible with the mainstream versions (which, again, they did not, and so fell out of compatibility).
> any transferable skills
It puts you in a position of arguing that you are familiar with <some-lib>, just a modified proprietary version of it.. Makes those conversations a bit more difficult..
> All were good devs but only knew quartz
To be fair - this is their own fault. It's difficult providing proof in terms of "what you worked on in your last job"; but there's no reason a professional python dev couldn't become familiar with the popular versions of things on their own, given they are fairly close in functionality. Many of the quartz devs I knew already had backgrounds in Python, attended pycons etc; so knew more than Quartz.
It's not just the "knowing some lib". It's a way of working that is not compatible with the outside world. I had every single character i type having to get director approval. I sopped counting broken things that required human intervention (on rota). The style of programming is... well.. . bankish? I would have had to take a big gamble hiring most of these guys.
Yes, it is their fault, but the organisation didn't even attempt to nurture professional development. Stagnation was a feature, not a bug. Arguably, these guys were paid very well so they would have taken a pay cut anywhere else anyway.