出版与作家生涯2012hitesh.in
如果我们像招聘开发者那样招聘写作者
What if we hired writers like we hire developers
导读
这篇短文以“如果像招开发者一样招写作者”为设想，比较两类招聘与评估方式：看既往作品、做现场测试、解释自己的作品。对写作者来说，值得思考的是如何用可验证的作品和清晰表达证明能力，而不只是靠简历或“语法正确”。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
用公开作品或作品集证明能力；没有可展示成果时，就用限时写作或编辑测试来替代。
- 02
把语感放在首位：好语法不等于好写作，但明显语法错误会暴露不专业；靠阅读和朗读培养“耳朵”，而不是只背术语。
- 03
写作是向人清楚解释：无论技术还是文学，先让读者明白你在做什么、为什么做、还有哪些选择。
- 04
像记者训练一样，用给定材料写出完整文章，再做干净的文字编辑，提升精确性和可读性。
HN 评论精选
能否查看既往作品决定招聘方式：写作者有作品集，程序员常只能靠面试和编程题验证。
这条评论忽略了程序员和写作者工作现实的不同。招写作者时可以要求看既往作品；除非他在中情局工作，否则他可以指出写过的书、发表的文章，你读完就能判断是否胜任。招声称在谷歌写 Big Table 五年的资深工程师时，你只能相信他；不是不想看过去的提交记录，而是多数情况下看不到。因为看不到过去作品，我们才退而求其次：面试、编程题等。简单说，我们不按招写作者的方式招程序员，是因为做不到，而不是招程序员的人莫名更无能。开源正在改变这一点，越来越多人像招写作者一样依据公开的既往作品被录用，但不可能每个程序员都能展示过去代码。
kkowalczyk查看英文原文
This ignores different realities in how programmers and writers work. If you're hiring a writer, you cam ask to see his previous work. Unless he worked for CIA, he can point to books he's written, articles he published etc. You can then read them and that's all you need to make a decision if he's competent enough (you might still interview for cultural fit). If you're hiring a senior engineer that claims he spent last 5 years coding Big Table at Google, you have to take his word for it. It's not that you wouldn't like to see all his past checkins, you just can't in most cases. Not being able to see past work, we do the next best thing: interviews, coding questions etc. The simple explanation is: we don't hire programmers like writers because we can't, not because people hiring programmers are inexplicably so much more incompetent than people hiring writers (despite running much more profitable businesses). This is changing a bit due to open-source in that more and more people are hired like writers i.e. based on their publicly available past work, but it'll never be the case that every programmer will be able to show his past code.
语法术语不等于语感；好作家靠耳朵判断，明显错误会暴露能力不足。
好语法不说明是好作家，但坏语法说明是坏作家。这里的“好语法”指对语言的耳朵；好作家避开语法错误，是因为错误听起来不对，像乐手听走音。显式语法知识不太重要：好作家可能不知道什么是虚拟语气，却知道何时怎么用；反之有知识没耳朵会很难受。为效果故意破例当然可以，从兰波的“Je est un autre”到佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿；这也说明罗列写作或音乐规则很徒劳，哪怕规则是“别连续三句用 which 开头”。
FreakLegion查看英文原文
> Good spellings and knowledge of grammar rules does not indicate a good writer, and there are tools (spelling/grammar check) and (editorial) processes to take care of that. Good grammar doesn't indicate a good writer, but bad grammar does indicate a bad one[1]. (Good grammar meaning, in this case, an ear for language. Good writers avoid grammatical errors because grammatical errors sound wrong, like an off-pitch note to a musician[2]. Explicit knowledge of grammar isn't particularly important. For example, good writers may not know what the subjunctive mood is, but they know how and when to use it. Conversely, a writer who has the knowledge but lacks the ear is in for a rough ride.) 1. Unless it's for effect, obviously, which can range from Rimbaud's "Je est un autre" to Zora Neal Hurston. 2. Which, of course, may also be done for effect. Which is why listing out rules (about writing, about music, etc.) is so fruitless. Which is true even if the rule is "Don't start three sentences in a row with the word 'which.'"
写作的核心是向人清楚解释；技术面试也应考察候选人能否解释自己的作品与选择。
开发者也是写作者：一个写英文，一个写代码，但都写给人类读者（机器只需 0 和 1，编程语言是给人看的）。所以招写作者和招开发者不该有很大差别；一个好测试或许是让开发者用英文写技术短文：能否把问题讲清楚。我不会雇一个无法解释自己在做什么、为什么做、还有哪些选项的开发者。让面试者带来一段自己特别自豪的代码，并解释它做什么、为什么好，难道不是好方法吗？
bambax查看英文原文
A developer is a writer; one writes English and the other writes code, but they both write to a human audience (the only "code" a machine needs to see is 0s and 1s; programming languages are for humans). So there really shouldn't be a big difference in hiring a writer vs. a developer; and a good test would probably be to have developers write essays in English about a technical question: can they make themselves understood? I would not hire a developer who is incapable of explaining what he's doing, why he's doing it, what the other options are, etc. Wouldn't it be a good technique to have interviewees bring an example of their own code that they're especially proud of, and have them explain what it does and why it's great?
记者招聘用作品样本、编辑测试和给定材料写作，与编程面试同理：用实际产出验证精确表达。
许多报纸会要求应聘记者提供：1. 剪报（写作样本）；2. 文字编辑测试（确保写得干净）；3. 根据给定事实或信息写出真实报道。这和面试中让开发者写代码差不多。干净准确的文字需要类似的精确性，只不过你的编译器恰好是人。
brandnewlow查看英文原文
At many newspapers they ask prospective reporters for 1. Clips (writing samples) 2. A copy editing test (to make sure they write cleanly) 3. Actual stories written from some facts or info provided. That's not so different from asking a developer to write some code during technical interviews. Good clean copy requires similar precision, but your compiler happens to be a human.
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