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When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

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Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#51

Post by Jach »

akronim wrote: post #44
qeorge wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfair how? Anyone can participate in open source. Those who do deserve the benefits that come with it (of which visibility is one of the most obvious).

Anyone can participate in open source. That's not correct - plenty of employment contracts lay claim to any contributions, which means the projects can't accept them.

Employment contracts don't dictate what you can write in the privacy of your own home on a non-employer-owned machine and what you subsequently do with it. (Of course non-compete clauses can kick in if you're working on Oracle DB and contribute to Postgres, but there are always other OSS projects where that little restriction doesn't apply.)

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#52

Post by bphogan »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #38

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

The problem is that I can't believe a word you said. I can't see examples of this awesome super top-secret code because it's all closed-source, as you say, for good reasons.

I also can't trust your references, because you'll only give me ones that will say good things about you, and any digging at your work history will only uncover "yes he worked here" responses.

I want to see open-source contributions because I like being around people who are passionate about solving problems with code, and it is my experience that people who contribute to open-source projects, or start their own, are of that mindset.

I don't think that they are the only people who are passionate, but I want to make a choice so I can get back to solving problems.

If you're making the hiring people work harder, you're going to miss out. Being able to show examples of your work is the best way to do it.

How do you feel about tests? or "write this program that does [x]" spec projects instead?

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#53

Post by lusis »

akronim wrote: post #44
qeorge wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfair how? Anyone can participate in open source. Those who do deserve the benefits that come with it (of which visibility is one of the most obvious).

Anyone can participate in open source. That's not correct - plenty of employment contracts lay claim to any contributions, which means the projects can't accept them.

Let me quite honest and say that if someone Agnes an employment contract, as a developer, that prevents them from writing unrelated code in their spare time or lays claim to any code written outside of the office, that person is an idiot. I'm not a developer and on every company I've been with in the past 10 or so years I've gotten something in writing or marked up my contract/employee agreement stating that in no way does the company have rights to anything I develop on my personal time. I'm fully willing to accept restrictions in specific technologies if it directly competes with the core business of the employer but only under very specific circumstances.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#54

Post by Athtar »

merijnv wrote: post #23
kenjackson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but it puts those that contribute to other repos at a disadvantage. Additionally, it puts Windows devs at a disadvantage as Git is simply not as usable as Mercurial/SVN or heaven forbid, even TFS, on Windows.

That's not necessarily true. I prefer Mercurial over Git but I prefer GitHub over Bitbucket/Google Code. That's why the fine folks over at GitHub implemented their hg-git plugin which allows Mercurial to interact with Git repositories. That means I get to keep on using my preferred tool together with my preferred site, progress! \o/

Putting aside GitHub/Bitbucket, the tools for Git (and even Mercurial) suck when it comes to Windows. This is the case with both the Visual Studio and the Explorer plug-ins. It's a real shame too, because Git and Mercurial are massive improvements over the existing SCM tools for Windows-based developers (CVS/SVN/TFS, etc.)

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#55

Post by tlrobinson »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #38

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

Some companies have a culture built around open source software (e.x. Github), and some don't. The latter will value open source contributions less (or none). If you have no desire to be involved in open source then perhaps you'd fit better in those companies.

Also, contributing to open source projects doesn't necessarily need to happen in your "spare time". Companies contribute to open source too.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#56

Post by bphogan »

HowardRoark wrote: post #17

I agree its better than having nothing to show or talk about, but I wish hiring the right person was that easy. There is a lot of junk in Github and there are lots of smart developers outside the Github community.

Yes there's junk on Github. But I can see that and I can say "no, this person is not a good fit" before I hire them. :)

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#57

Post by orijing »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #13
orijing wrote: post #4

This puts developers in companies that commit to open source projects like Chromium to be at a significant advantage to those developing proprietary software. I understand where the author is coming from, but this is unfair for those who work on closed-source projects. Of course I have my own personal projects, but for most of them, I am not about release their source.

On the one hand you're saying this is unfair to those who do closed source projects at work. On the other, you're saying you have personal projects, but you refuse to release the source. So what are you complaining about exactly? If you don't want to be judged by your own work, then there's no problem: that's your decision. If you do, but you refuse to let anyone see it, then you're creating your own problem, so you…

You're correct that I am given a choice about whether I want to release my source. But I mentioned a specific example (Chromium developers paid by Google) who are being paid to produce open source work.

I do exhibit some of my smaller projects on github; my larger projects are not online because of competitive reasons.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#58

Post by mwsherman »

dpritchett wrote: post #45
JasonPunyon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true and thanks for the feedback. Do you (or anyone else reading) have any ideas for things that all talented developers would want to list on their profiles that we don't have on Careers yet? Thanks again!

While filling out my profile it struck me that I'd love a friend finding service: Find me programmers within 50 miles of my stated location who share interests and experiences in some of the many tags I chose for myself. I'd like to meet them and have a beer.

We'd need a word like "bromance", but for nerds.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#59

Post by calloc »

akronim wrote: post #44
qeorge wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfair how? Anyone can participate in open source. Those who do deserve the benefits that come with it (of which visibility is one of the most obvious).

Anyone can participate in open source. That's not correct - plenty of employment contracts lay claim to any contributions, which means the projects can't accept them.

The company I work for recently told me that all of my patches to open source projects we use can be contributed back, under my name as work for hire by the company under the original license (no projects I've got patches for are under a contributor license of any sort, so no issues there).

This has made me extremely happy, and means that in the future I can point towards those patches that were posted as proof of work I have done.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#60

Post by onan_barbarian »

lbrandy wrote: post #47
onan_barbarian wrote: post #38

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

This is one of those posts that is made, and upvoted, based on what everyone wants to be true, instead of what is true. The simple, unassailable truth is that having strong contributions to open-source projects is a massive advantage in any resume-scanning and hiring situation. And as a hiring manager, seeing extensive open-source work is better than seeing a resume. That means the advice is ALWAYS good advice. There…

I'm not trying to convince you of anything.

I am well aware that strong open-source contributions are an advantage. What I find objectionable is not this advantage. It's the fact that failing to secure this advantage is being portrayed as an obvious professional failure that can be simply rectified by working an extra few hours a night on side projects.

It is propaganda from open source people, many of who have achieved considerably less in their open source projects than a casual inspection might suggest. Usually I come away from people's open source projects with a cheerful acknowledgement that this person (a) likes cool stuff and (b) appears to be able to write working code of a kind. This is good - but not that good.

There's a big difference between 'I wrote some code, look at me' and 'I contributed a competitive register allocator to LLVM' or 'I rewrote the scheduling algorithm for major open source FooOS'. The latter are 'strong contributions' and deserve the 'massive advantage' of which you speak. A handful of pet projects constitute a code sample that suggests that the person can form syntactically correct code.

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