Somebody has to mantain "legacy software", heck you can even tell that all software becomes "legacy" at some point.
Without knowing you it's difficult to know why are you selected to work on legacy software. Maybe you're great dealing with old code bases? Maybe other people has a better marketing and come as "rock star" engineers that can work with the last technology?
There are two possible "solutions" I can think of:
- Move jobs once you're assigned to work on legacy software (change jobs each 2-4 years).
- Work in a startup where all software is crucial for the company and even if there are no good-practices, you'll learn many "shiny" technologies.
I don't mind doing home assignments as long as they're interesting. Make learn about some technology or some design pattern or whatever. Something that improves my skill. If I am going to dedicate some of my own time to a project, at least, push my skills to the limit and "help me" grow.
I refuse to do basic projects that make me learn nothing and feel like a wasting of time. Most of the time if the assignment is "not interesting" the future offer would be lower than I expect and the daily job is going to be boring.
I think that my point of view is going to be unique here, maybe is because I need a "push" to improve my skills (I'd rather not to be fair), but although I have been rejected from some processes after a long and hard assignment, I have learn something and I'm happy (almost grateful) about that.
Spain will only veto Scotland if the independence is not agreed between the UK and Scotland (in the same spirit of Spain's opinion of Kosovo independence).
Spain parliament is against unilateral declarations of independence.
> This small stele or plaque was donated to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1887 or 1888 by Alexander Wood Inglis. There is currently no information on how he acquired it.
I assume he (or the previous owner) acquired the stele by the same means the marbles of the Parthenon were acquired.
Allow me to be a bit "blunt" and controversial here: Catalonia based their economy in slavery[1][2][3][4]. Are Catalans going to make reparations to the descendents of those slaves?
Sadly, what is in the past cannot be undone. We can help poor and needed people, though. And we should be doing that, independently of their ancestors.
A private company (Odyssey Marine Exploration) salvaged the wreck illegally:
> On February 17, 2012, it was reported that U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo ordered Odyssey to return the coins to Spain by February 24, 2012, where they will be dispersed to museums, not to heirs. The Supreme Court declined to stay this order and Odyssey will abide by the decision.[23] On February 24, 2012, two C-130 Hercules aircraft from the Spanish Air Force picked up the treasure in Florida and transported it to Spain.[24] Odyssey petitioned the Supreme Court to reconsider the issues in the case but on May 14, 2012, the court declined to take up the appeal.[25] The coins have been returned to Spain, whereby Spanish law dictates that they can never be sold to the public.
I have lived all my life in Spain and that's not my experience. Maybe in some small rural towns you can (illegally) keep an unfinished work for years, as long as nobody notices.
However, that is absolutely not true for most Spanish cities.
I'm genuely interested, what kind of test could that be? Some tests they have gave me in several interviews:
- Online shops.
- Hackerrank questions.
- Read from a big log file in an efficient manner with Python (did it but there was also a 3-4 hour on-site interview).
That's right. That's the main point in favor of making the candidate do a simple questionnaire in office (or remote but in real time). Only 1 hour of their time is wasted.
I don't think that take-at-home tests are fair. Most of times I've been given one the 3-4 hours have been actually a weekend. In fact, I have the policy of only accepting take-at-home tests that are interesting problems that help me learn something along the process of developing them.
On the other hand, I also don't like on-site interviews. A random question not-related at all with the position you're interviewing for is given, and have to solve it while you're beholded by a bunch of strangers... Being tired/nervous after a 3/4 hour in-site interview, scenic panic... To sum up, tThe recipe for disaster.
Whe I was the interviewer long ago, I gave them a questionary that could be solved in 1 hour. I made sure to tell the candidates that don't get stressed, look for whatever info you want in internet, and that there's no good/bad answers. In fact, I gave them the questionary and once the time has passed I would get them to check the answers.
There was several level of questions, to prune candidates at different levels. That also helped to determine the level of the candidate (I was working for a 200 employee non-tech company at the time).
I suppose that the questionary could have been asked to be completed in-place, in an empty room and without internet... But, what's the point of that? In the real world a developer is allowed to use internet, in fact, knowing to search is a skill I'd like to check.
Besides, if they had some open-source projects I would take a look at that, and at the end, there was a technical conversation between them and some senior developers about their career.
Without knowing you it's difficult to know why are you selected to work on legacy software. Maybe you're great dealing with old code bases? Maybe other people has a better marketing and come as "rock star" engineers that can work with the last technology?
There are two possible "solutions" I can think of: