Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The dispassionate developer

blog.ploeh.dk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 262 posts

Re: The dispassionate developer

#31

Post by lucian1900 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8
agloeregrets wrote: post #4

I'm betting on this article being controversial here somewhat. The point on OSS is hilariously true though. Like, everyone does realize that the tech giants just found a way to make the community work for them and to make money off the backs of it right? OSS is great for almost everyone, don't get me wrong, but in whole, the largest tech companies in the world have gotten an entire community to test, fix, and develop…

> Like, everyone does realize that the tech giants just found a way to make the community work for them and to make money off the backs of it right? Virtually every tech startup or company makes use of open source at every level. We all benefit. There’s no need to be cynical because big companies are also benefiting.

There is little difference. The vast majority of programmers are workers without any kind of ownership, but still expected to volunteer unpaid time to open source projects for career advancement.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#32

Post by ARandomerDude »

dfilppi wrote: post #22

Not seeing why employers are to blame. Developers are the ones that decided their work is worthless.

There's a feedback effect where those developers get hired and then become the hiring managers (employers). So the line between developer and employer is gray enough for some blame to lie on both sides.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#33

Post by kodah »

I do like when teams will ask for side projects (if I have them) or OSS projects. Software has an inherent bias towards people from prestigious schools (but especially CS programs) and enforces that bias via heavy algorithm testing that is otherwise mostly not needed in software. Not to say it's never needed, but the 90% use case does not involve knowing how to do binary search by hand. As I built my knowledge around algorithms to adhere to certain software engineers biases, being able to sub that in for actual work was pivotal to my career. It's surprising to see people outright excluding that as an option in the interviewing process.

As my career has gone on longer and I've overcame the algorithm bias, my OSS contributions mostly dissipated. I do continue to work on side projects to learn but I continually encourage businesses to promote learning during work time. Bringing back read only Friday is a great way to do this and generally maintain velocity.

I don't have any data for you, just my experiences.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#34

Post by BlargMcLarg »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8
agloeregrets wrote: post #4

I'm betting on this article being controversial here somewhat. The point on OSS is hilariously true though. Like, everyone does realize that the tech giants just found a way to make the community work for them and to make money off the backs of it right? OSS is great for almost everyone, don't get me wrong, but in whole, the largest tech companies in the world have gotten an entire community to test, fix, and develop…

> Like, everyone does realize that the tech giants just found a way to make the community work for them and to make money off the backs of it right? Virtually every tech startup or company makes use of open source at every level. We all benefit. There’s no need to be cynical because big companies are also benefiting.

It's not that they make use of open source. It's that some have the gall to expect developers to contribute to open source in their own time, rather than working on their own projects or contributing to open source on the company's dime (the last one being, by far, the best option for humanity as a whole in a vacuum).

Though the main problem is in companies expecting too much from their employees (see: "looking for starter with 5 years of experience in framework X Y Z, language A B C and preferably knows devops front to back"), it is somewhat naïve to expect a passive force can only be beneficial to everyone while the majority power is still in hands of employers and employees are too decentralized and unorganized to fight it.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#35

Post by giantg2 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #27
giantg2 wrote: post #10

Working in the industry kills one's passion. It did for me.

This is true of most things, I've noticed. My neighbor is an amazing carpenter. He makes beautiful furniture from exotic pieces of wood he's had for 10 years just waiting to be used on that perfect project. I told him he could make a fortune selling things like what he's got in his living room, but he just shrugged and said it would take away all the fun. He's right.

Yeah, I use to make Android apps. Now I don't see the point.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#36

Post by auganov »

The flip-side of this is a lot of open source software is written for its own end. I've learned to be very careful about assuming something is a good package just because it seems to have nice looking docs and a bit of popularity. You will often find something with a TOOOON of different features and switches, but upon closer inspection it turns out all of it is subpar. And I don't mean it in a perfectionist sense, just bad in a way that it's unlikely it has ever been used and iterated on in production. When hiring one should be careful not to foster this kind of culture inhouse.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#37

Post by whatshisface »

kodah wrote: post #33

I do like when teams will ask for side projects (if I have them) or OSS projects. Software has an inherent bias towards people from prestigious schools (but especially CS programs) and enforces that bias via heavy algorithm testing that is otherwise mostly not needed in software. Not to say it's never needed, but the 90% use case does not involve knowing how to do binary search by hand. As I built my knowledge around…

>Software has an inherent bias towards people from prestigious schools and enforces that bias via heavy algorithm testing that is otherwise mostly not needed in software.

Can't any school teach the same algorithms material? It's not exactly secret. Algorithms interviews seem more like surreptitious IQ tests than anything else.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#38

Post by Uberphallus »

notsuoh wrote: post #16
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the hiring side, it’s rare to see someone come through with significant OSS contributions. A small bug fix here or there is about the most I see from 90% of resumes. Every once in a while we see someone with a lot of open source contributions, or even full leadership of a popular project. These people would really prefer if we believed that OSS contributions and GitHub profiles replaced resumes or CVs, because it’…

Taking that a step further, we often actively discourage looking at OSS contributions during resume review for the same reason we don't offer take home interview assignments: it's biased against people who don't have a whole lot of extra time at home. When we have done either of the above, the singles who work part time have a bunch of time to perfect their work suddenly have a lot to show over the single parents who…

Thank you!

When I was single I had a lot of free time to tinker and go through coding tests, etc, etc, and cater to whatever hiring shenanigans were in place.

First marriage, then a kid, and I find myself grabbing my laptop after work maybe once a fortnight. I'm always "open for new challenges" and I regularly apply to positions in interesting (to me) projects, but more often than not, at some point in their process they gimme some "take home assignments" that are a literal week of unpaid work. I've heard of companies that pay for those assignments, but I've never stumbled upon one.

I always drop out of that, thinking, "good luck with that particular choice of candidate sampling". I might not have been the best candidate, but most seniors I talk to are turned off by these things as well.

Timed coding tests are fine, up to 2-3h, I can squeeze one of those in most weeks. But, and I'm not making it up, "implement this subset of the MQTT spec in your language of choice" as just a step in the hiring process? Hell nah.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#39

Post by wccrawford »

It's been a while since I've applied for a new job, but when I was, they might have asked about OSS contributions, but I don't think they really cared. It was just a way to better judge my ability.

Likewise, when we interview people, we ask if they have a github repo or other portfolio, but it's about their code, not about OSS. I don't care if it's private code or OSS, so long as I can use it to judge their skill level.

And if they don't have anything like that, it's not a mark against them... It's just harder to be confident in their ability.

We do a short test, but any test that actually tests their abilities would be too time-consuming (and thus expense) to give to more than a handful or candidates that we were already pretty sure of.

Re: The dispassionate developer

#40

Post by kodah »

whatshisface wrote: post #37
kodah wrote: post #33

I do like when teams will ask for side projects (if I have them) or OSS projects. Software has an inherent bias towards people from prestigious schools (but especially CS programs) and enforces that bias via heavy algorithm testing that is otherwise mostly not needed in software. Not to say it's never needed, but the 90% use case does not involve knowing how to do binary search by hand. As I built my knowledge around…

> Software has an inherent bias towards people from prestigious schools and enforces that bias via heavy algorithm testing that is otherwise mostly not needed in software. Can't any school teach the same algorithms material? It's not exactly secret. Algorithms interviews seem more like surreptitious IQ tests than anything else.

Good question. I'm a drop out (a byproduct of paying for school while working in 2009) and it's been difficult to put my life on pause to go back. College grads get the luxury of having seen algorithms before and being taught how to negotiate and identify them in school with a fair amount of practice. I'm sure everyone studies for interviews, but for someone like me that study also often coincides with learning something for the first time. The industry now has a term for people like me, which is people from "non-traditional backgrounds". Many systems engineers, QA engineers, frontend engineers, etc will often be placed in this category.
Post reply on HN