Ajax developer's résumé spooks the old people

30.03.2009
Website developer has whipped up an irreverently hilarious résumé that ditches the dull list-of-accomplishments curriculum vitae format for a stream-of-consciousness rant punched up with CSS animation that flaunts Stokes' "MAD SKILLZ."

That's right, I'll Ajax the crap out of your site. Nothing, and I mean nothing will be static. I'll pull your data asynchronously from every orifice of your server. Your clients will be SOOOOO impressed. What's more, I'll use jQuery to do it all!!!! Imagine the look on your shareholders faces when they view source and see that your site is calling jquery-min-1.3.js?!?! Oh, BTW, using jQuery costs extra ok, that magic dust don't come cheap.

Stokes adds, in giant blinking text: "I also do Twitter backgrounds."

Gartner analyst Brian Burke, who has a 23-year career in IT and as an analyst, at Stokes' home page. But come on, Brian, I think you're reaching too broadly here:

Noah is a great example of a 'Digital Native'. He is clearly not a younger version of us.

You're technically correct, but what you really mean is: Noah is not a younger version of you. He's a younger version of me, clearly sick of being offered US$15 per hour, as he says, to code advanced Web pages.

But there's no generational shift here. Ever since Bill Gates became rich and powerful, programmers have flaunted the fact that being childishly snotty and arrogant are considered normal for the profession. As long as they write good code on time and don't hack the CEO's laptop, no one cares.

Gartner's meme isn't a complete crock, but it's in some ways a rehash of the idea floated around the mainstream media in 1981 that kids who played videogames were a new breed of human, whom grownups would never be able to understand because they didn't start playing videogames at age eight (see the 1982 album cover for The Who's It's Hard, above.)

Burke claims that Stokes is "telling you that he's not going to fit in to your company, but if your company fits him then he may work there ... We need to rethink how we are going to attract and retain the best and brightest of Noah's generation."

Here's a crazy idea, Brian: Pay them.