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I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

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Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#111

Post by mercer »

nabla9 wrote: post #84
nkozyra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is he a particularly noted person? Maybe just in the emacs community? I don't know who he is and that resume is pretty skimpy. It seems that his biggest need right now is self-presentation and that's a pretty tough thing to acquire on short notice. I'd also say there would likely be way more opportunities for someone of his skillset outside of the valley, where the skimpy resume probably looks even skimpier by compar…

He is known as annoying Usenet troll by many. I don't classify him as pure troll, however. He don't troll for the sake of trolling and he can be helpful. He is very opinionated and argumentative and don't adjust his thinking very well. He might have mood disorder. http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Personal_dir/xah.html

Indeed. I know a few people who have a (strong) mood disorder, and one characteristic they all share is that they tend to be more abrasive and 'rigid' in general, even when they're in a good mood.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#112

Post by pekk »

stdbrouw wrote: post #96
thegeomaster wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is his resume really skimpy? I thought it was rather good, but I have no reference points on what is and what isn't considered good enough.

It actually does look pretty good, until you realize he doesn't list any real previous job experience anywhere.

Which is the worst, unforgivable sin (even worse than being old). It doesn't matter what you have done, if there is no corporation to witness to your ability and you do not have a fresh face. Hence "entry-level" positions requiring 5 years of experience, and yet you are unemployable forever if you don't have a job within 5 years of graduating. It might as well be law.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#113

Post by epsylon »

DanBC wrote: post #93
hadoukenio wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad. Almost everyone (including people on that Python mailing list thread below) has jumped on him calling him a troll while (not to their own fault) missing that this guy has mental health issues. He needs professional help not money.

Some people are just assholes and do not have mental health problems. Unless you're widening the definition for MH problem to include things like anger or Asperger's syndrome.

Being an asshole is a mental problem.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#114

Post by seren »

mercer wrote: post #90

Cases like this, when the talented person in question is a geek who "doesn't interview well," always frustrate me. Most of my professional success is a result of social skills and a lot of experience with wildly different social environments and cultures. While I do work hard at being actually good at what I do (because that's just more fun!), I could get pretty far as a cruddy developer. And that just feels unfair,…

Do not underestimate social skills. A SW project is rarely (never?) a one man's job, you have to deal with other team members, business, client expectation, testers, QA, etc.

I have worked in company where people had generally good social skills, were helpful, able to listen carefully and receive feedback and criticism without going mad. On the other hand, have worked in environment where most people were passive-aggressive, unable to compromise or negotiate, unwilling to empathize with other teams. It should come as no surprise that in the latter situation, projects were always running very late behind schedule. (Causation could also have been the other way round, since everyone was stressed out, the basic defense mechanism was to stop worrying about other people, which in turn was slowing down the project further...)

I would add that the different behavior were not really due to individuals but rather to the overall "culture", and modeled after the top manager behavior.

Maybe I am wrong, but early in my career, I used to believe that SW project were technical challenges, but for bigger project, it is much more an organizational challenge, and the way people interact with each other is a big part of that. And being able to listen is as important as being able to communicate clearly.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#115

Post by jacquesm »

dbaupp wrote: post #43
philbarr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 8 thousand visitors per day. 240 thousand visitors per month Could he set up Google Ads on there - automatic, passive income that just goes straight into his account?

Any estimates for how much income that would provide?

A little bit, until his account gets suspended out of the blue for no particular reason. Of course it's found money and even a bit is better than nothing but he really should not become dependent on his adsense income for something as crucial as food or rent.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#116

Post by serf »

thegeomaster wrote: post #80
nkozyra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is he a particularly noted person? Maybe just in the emacs community? I don't know who he is and that resume is pretty skimpy. It seems that his biggest need right now is self-presentation and that's a pretty tough thing to acquire on short notice. I'd also say there would likely be way more opportunities for someone of his skillset outside of the valley, where the skimpy resume probably looks even skimpier by compar…

Is his resume really skimpy? I thought it was rather good, but I have no reference points on what is and what isn't considered good enough.

I don't think it's skimpy, but maybe wrongly ordered and perhaps some stuff should be omitted.

Example :

Accomplishments (at the top) : High school dropout Education (at the bottom) : Member of MENSA.

seems obvious to me which one of those two should be getting played up more.

His site has been personally very helpful to me, and I hope that he has a run of better luck.

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#117

Post by jacquesm »

jgrahamc wrote: post #83
throwaway283719 wrote: post #26

He could start by rewriting his resume. This in particular stands out - Accomplishment highlights: * Autodidact. High school dropout. No degree. To almost any employer, that is not an accomplishment, much less a highlight! If you're a high school dropout who is very accomplished since then, just silently drop any mention of your education from your resume. Everyone will assume that you left it off because it's irrele…

Sad. A couple of months ago at the Go London User Group a young guy came up to me and told me he didn't have a degree, was totally self taught, and wanted to know if it was even worth him applying to CloudFlare. I told him to apply. He started last Monday. I can only speak for CloudFlare, but educational background is _a component_ of a candidate. But it's only _a component_, it's not everything. We're interested in…

Super nice to see that!

Re: I'm About as Good as Dead: The End of Xah Lee

#118

Post by nkozyra »

pekk wrote: post #105
nkozyra wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, thanks. I think there's a lot of room for boisterous, outspoken and even aggressive developers, but you really gotta prove you have the chops to earn that. I'd agree with your assessment that interpersonal skills are the issue (in fact he agrees, too) and that's not something you can fix overnight. I really think the best situation for this guy is to get out of the valley for a bit, get a job doing some very focu…

You really gotta prove you have the chops to deliver judgement on Xah Lee. I have no idea who you are and I can't tell you did anything as helpful as Xah Lee did. Maybe you should just refrain from judging people like this so harshly when you don't really know anything about them. Your attitude sucks. I would never, ever want to work with you when you talk smack on people like this without knowing anything about them…

I didn't talk smack about him, so I have no idea what you're ranting about here.
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