[Asterisk-biz] Need to hire someone to start doing developing onAsterisk

[Michael Giagnocavo]

>Problem is that I do not even what skills to ask for custom development on
Asterisk.  I assume >that C and perl programing will be valuable, but....
Any special suggestion for the skill I have >to look for ? 

C is definitely a plus, as it’s what Asterisk is written in. That’s how you
can write completely native modules. So you’d want someone who can write in
C and knows how to use pointers :). Probably wouldn’t hurt to ask them to
write a binary tree or similar in C, just so you’re sure they actually know
what they’re doing.
Perl and others are used, but I wouldn’t say knowing it is required.
Experience / knowledge of VoIP/telephony in general would help too. 

Hiring someone with experience in Asterisk dev would obviously be even
better :).

I'm working on a managed (using ECMA-335 (aka, .NET)) API for Asterisk, so
eventually you'll be able to write very-close-to-the-metal modules, but
without having to use C (i.e., using Managed C++, C#, VB, Java, PASCAL,
COBOL, etc.). That should lower the barrier to entry significantly for non-C
programmers.

>Also.... I can afford (and I will) to have a period of training for that
person.... Problem is >that I was unable to locate any documentation on APIs
on Asterisk, neither samples, or exercises, >that I can use to start
learning ............ Could any one give me any suggestion about what to
>learn / read / test in order to do custom development in Asterisk ? Is
there any exercises that >I can start with ? 

The dev list and #asterisk on irc.freenode.net is what I use. Also, reading
other Asterisk code seems to help. There is a book on Asterisk, half of it
is fluff, but it can introduce people to basic telephony and Asterisk
concepts, get them a small start. 

>I feel that there is enough information about Asterisk, but think that is
not so easy to obtain >any sample or what you can do with APIs, neither it
is easy to find examples, refences, either >simple things can show you what
kind or roadmap to follow. I do not even known if API on >Asterisk is doing
some custom C modules or just "capturing" the console using perl and sending
>back Asterisk cmds. 

You can do both. However, communicating via strings is less than optimal.
It'll work for simple apps, but for the most flexibly, you've gotta use the
C API. I believe res_perl exposes this C API to Perl, but as I don't use
Perl, I'm not sure how powerful res_perl is.

Suerte,
Michael