Working with Other Software Developers

Over the years, I've employed four software developers and contracted with a couple. In all of these cases, it never ceases to amaze me how they fail to follow instructions.

Take my current situation as an example. My company has contracted with a developer with a resume that should intimidate any potential co-worker. Yet, when I give him some of the simplest instructions such as:

• Use Spring's Annotated Transactions for DAOs


• Move 3rd party libraries to the lib directory


• The project must build at the command line and not just in an IDE

He routinely fails to follow them.

In the first example, not only did he not use Spring Annotated Transactions, he didn't even use Spring's wrappers for Hibernate DAOs.

In the second example, he sent me an e-mail proposing creating a lib directory in the project for the 3rd party libraries. Huh?

In the third example, it has become obvious he just doesn't want to leave the IDE.

So, my question is this. Is he:

1. Feigning ignorance to do the project the way he wants knowing there is little time to go back and change some of these things?


2. Stupid?


3. Unable to grasp the level of complexity required in a mid-sized web application?

Based on my experience, I'd say (b) is the most likely culprit with (a) thrown in for a little variety. I know some would object to me calling him stupid, but consider this...if he doesn't follow the instructions of the person who writes his check, what is he????