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The black market in GitHub stars

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Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#31

Post by Grimburger »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #24
siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

I had a friend working with a well known startup founder. The founder was interested in me from what my friend told him, all he wanted to see was my github profile. All of my github projects are private. That was the end of that, even after he already knew that my experience was perfect for their company. So ya, some people definitely put too much emphasis on the github profile.

You can share private repos? Granting access for a week isn't hard.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#32

Post by paulgb »

siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

I doubt many people cheat stars to get hired, it’s just not a major signal there. But with stars being a signal of traction for open source startups, I definitely think there are some companies out there buying them.

Particularly in crypto where people want to quantify “community” and star count is a crude but very available way to do that.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#34

Post by zuzu89 »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #24
siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

I had a friend working with a well known startup founder. The founder was interested in me from what my friend told him, all he wanted to see was my github profile. All of my github projects are private. That was the end of that, even after he already knew that my experience was perfect for their company. So ya, some people definitely put too much emphasis on the github profile.

this is a perfectly reasonable decision when hiring for a startup, why waste hours, that you don't have, on interviews testing the candidate when you can lookup their past work

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#35

Post by nologic01 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #23
johnea wrote: post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

I'm just glad there's no LinkedIn connection

Quite a few people seem to be using github as a place to put a cv. Social media behaviors are creeping in, slowly but surely.

The path from here to "Are you currently hiring?" and "You had so many people looking at your profile, unlock your opportunities with a premium subscription" etc. is not that long.

But I dont want to pretent I really know how to enshittify a platform.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#36

Post by swatcoder »

flutas wrote: post #13
nocommandline wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant number of folks (especially non-professional developers) make a choice on which library/project to use based on the number of GitHub stars. For these people, the more number of stars, the more it means the 'package is good/useful'. You can argue it isn't the best/most effective way but it's quite common.

I find myself (as a professional software dev) trying to break that mindset frequently, especially on GitHub, when looking at libraries to use for a task if there's more than 1. What I try to focus on now is more so the commit and release cadence / frequency since in my mind frequent activity means it's more likely to have bugs fixed and security issues handled. Would love to hear other's input on this.

It’s common, but also absurd, to hold your own teammates to a higher standard than you do some internet rando contributing a big block of code to your project.

With exception of a handful of “pillar” dependencies used throughout the industry, you should be reviewing your dependencies with the same eye for detail that you bring to pull/merge reviews in your own organization. And you should do it again every time you explicitly tell your package manager to reference a new version.

If you care about the quality of your own project, it doesn’t matter how many stars there are, or the commit frequency, or the responsiveness to issues. What matters is that the code is legible, that it meets your own standards of quality and reliability, and that you understand in detail what it’s doing.

If you can’t do that because a dependency is too large or fast-churning to review, then you should consider whether its actually suitable for your project. Often, in these cases, you’ll remind yourself that you only need 1% of what the dependency provides and that it’s actually less work and better for your skill development to tackle that 1% on your own or with a more narrow dependency that you can properly vet.

But of course, your product manager probably won’t have the patience for any of this, and your colleagues will look at you like you’re a paranoid freak. And that’s why software quality is garbage now and getting constantly worse.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#37

Post by siva7 »

Grimburger wrote: post #31
bonestamp2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend working with a well known startup founder. The founder was interested in me from what my friend told him, all he wanted to see was my github profile. All of my github projects are private. That was the end of that, even after he already knew that my experience was perfect for their company. So ya, some people definitely put too much emphasis on the github profile.

You can share private repos? Granting access for a week isn't hard.

Why should parent bother if the startup ceo can't be bothered to interview on the signal of a personal referal?

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#38

Post by siva7 »

zuzu89 wrote: post #34
bonestamp2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend working with a well known startup founder. The founder was interested in me from what my friend told him, all he wanted to see was my github profile. All of my github projects are private. That was the end of that, even after he already knew that my experience was perfect for their company. So ya, some people definitely put too much emphasis on the github profile.

this is a perfectly reasonable decision when hiring for a startup, why waste hours, that you don't have, on interviews testing the candidate when you can lookup their past work

That's in no way reasonable and would show pretty weak hiring skills in a ceo obvious to people who have hired many engineers in the past.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#39

Post by blindhippo »

Grimburger wrote: post #31
bonestamp2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend working with a well known startup founder. The founder was interested in me from what my friend told him, all he wanted to see was my github profile. All of my github projects are private. That was the end of that, even after he already knew that my experience was perfect for their company. So ya, some people definitely put too much emphasis on the github profile.

You can share private repos? Granting access for a week isn't hard.

I would presume they are organizational/protected repos which cannot be shared due to a contractual obligation, not private and personal repos.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#40

Post by geraldwhen »

eschneider wrote: post #17
siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

When I get a resume for someone I've been asked to interview, I'll certainly look at any github profiles, and if there's something relevant there, I'll often use their project as a basis for whatever coding exercise we do, such as extend this class to add X functionality. Or use it as a basis for design questions.

A nonstandard interview process like this is illegal in some jurisdictions. It may run afoul of US law too, depending on the outcomes.

It is safer and easier to use a one size fits all interview.

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