Question - does anyone else get offended by the name "coder" I've always found that people who write code prefer to be called developers or hackers. I'm a bit of a hacker myself, so maybe i'm overly sensitive, and i know this is a small point, but i always feel like the people who use the word "coder," don't understand them or what they do.
Announcing HackStars
31–40 of 112 posts
Re: Announcing HackStars
#32Unpaid internships are becoming EXTREMELY common (if not in the CS field, certainly elsewhere). In NYC this used to be only the case for fashion, but has now spread to basically every other industry. We had a discussion the other day at lunch whether this was legal/ethical. I'm still not sure how I feel about it...
I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it. The employer actually hires most of their talent through the unpaid internship program. They get to see if the people who do the internship are really there because they want to learn and contribute regardless of monetary compensation. I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation, but the arrangement has taught me a great deal about how…
I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation
Which is why using unpaid internships to screen your hires is unethical. It's an artfully disguised form of class discrimination.
Lots of very smart and hardworking people cannot afford to work for free. Apparently those people are at a severe disadvantage when applying to work at your company. And it's not as if unpaid internships offer financial aid, like schools do.
I think it's fine to screen prospective employees as paid interns. I also think it's fine to try them out as consultants first, or even to have them perform a few hours of work for free, as a test. But in general work should be paid for. Unless, as I've said elsewhere, it is 100% free-software work.
Of course, just because it's unethical doesn't mean it doesn't happen or that you can do anything to change it.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#33I am going to reserve judgement on this for now, but I am really going to be surprised if this works out well for the TS companies. The old adage, "you get what you pay for" is especially true with developers/UI designers who are interested in startups. Without some sort of compensation, whether it be cash money or equity, I wonder if you are going to get the "right" kind of interest.
You have to ask yourself, who is their target talent here?
The real talented AND motivated developers/designers in Boulder and probably Boston (AKA "The Gurus"), who have an affinity for startups and TechStars probably applied to the program themselves and didn't get in. Either way, they know the value of their time and are hard at work on their own startups.
The other talented and motivated people are probably consultants or working full time at a company. Despite this being a poor economy, I've found that there is no shortage of work for the "right" people.
And of course, there are a fair share of those that fit a combination of the above.
This leaves us with the last two groups. The people that are either talented and unmotivated, or lack talent, but have the motivation. My suspicion is that you will get people volunteering to the HackStars program who are TechStars fanboys at best. They like the idea of doing a startup, or being a part of the "startup culture" but in truth may not want to put in the work, or worse, are benched because no one wants to work with them.
I may be totally wrong. Either way, I don't fault the TechStars team for test driving an idea like this. But if I were a founder who made it in to the program, I would be very skeptical of the value of the volunteers.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#34In general, any sort of unpaid internship biases against people who aren't well enough off to work for free (i.e. whose parents won't support them while they do). It's really a kind of class discrimination that prevents people from lower socioeconomic standing from having much of a chance at certain jobs (like in the finance world) that tend to rely heavily on unpaid internships. One thing I've always liked about my…
Actually I know quite a few people in my unpaid internship (programming) who don't have "real" jobs and are not exactly rich either. What they do is learn the trade by day, and go home at night to contract out their work on e-lance or something. It's basically a homework assignment that pays for your education.
Well, that's a good plan. But it doesn't exactly erase the unfairness of the practice. Lack of sleep and stress will cost you both happiness and performance, though you may not recognize that when you're nineteen ;)
Re: Announcing HackStars
#35I think part of the problem is that some hackers might sign up thinking it will give them an inside track to TechStars in a future round. But, giving 3 months of part time as an uncompensated intern is a high price to pay for the possibility of a second look at your application.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#36Fuck That! - EDIT I think that they should at least mention what the benefits of such an arrangement would be. Just hanging out with cool people doing work for free people isn’t really that beneficial. Everyone also knows, once a developer starts working on something like this it will be more than 15 hours of work; they will work all night and day to get things done. It should be more formal and give the developers s…
+1, Hilarious Insight Into The Compositional Process
Re: Announcing HackStars
#37Question - does anyone else get offended by the name "coder" I've always found that people who write code prefer to be called developers or hackers. I'm a bit of a hacker myself, so maybe i'm overly sensitive, and i know this is a small point, but i always feel like the people who use the word "coder," don't understand them or what they do.
This is offtopic, but...
...the problem, as always, is that the words have different connotations depending on the community.
As you probably know, the word "hacker" means "computer criminal" to the majority of the English-speaking world. As a result, calling yourself a "hacker" only works if (a) you only care about your reputation with other hackers, or (b) you are trying to cultivate an ambiguously dangerous persona. It is not a word I would put on my resume if I were applying at SAP, unless I were already well known for being Steve Wozniak.
So you're down to "programmer", "developer", or "coder". My impression is that most people use "developer" as a highfalutin synonym for "programmer"... but in some environments it connotes "a person who spends a lot of time talking about software but never uses the computer except for Outlook, Office, and Twitter". So, if you want to emphasize that you actually spend the majority of your day in emacs, lean towards the other words.
Sometimes "programmer" carries too strong a connotation of "code monkey". I find it best to just avoid places where this is true.
I don't like the word "coder" -- it doesn't offend me, but it's ugly. So I use the other words at random as whimsy strikes me.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#38In general, any sort of unpaid internship biases against people who aren't well enough off to work for free (i.e. whose parents won't support them while they do). It's really a kind of class discrimination that prevents people from lower socioeconomic standing from having much of a chance at certain jobs (like in the finance world) that tend to rely heavily on unpaid internships. One thing I've always liked about my…
Actually I know quite a few people in my unpaid internship (programming) who don't have "real" jobs and are not exactly rich either. What they do is learn the trade by day, and go home at night to contract out their work on e-lance or something. It's basically a homework assignment that pays for your education.
It might not be impossible for everyone, but it's certainly a huge disincentive, and not everyone has the skills or energy to hold down another job that actually pays the bills, or to contract out. On top of that, many internships (like in finance . . . or least like finance used to be) would expect interns to work 60 or 80 hours a week, which would make any sort of additional paid labor basically impossible.
Just because some people manage to make it work doesn't mean it's not hugely discriminatory.
The thing that really galls me is that most of the time the companies that do this sort of thing are perfectly capable of paying their interns, at least well enough for them to eat and pay rent, they just choose not to because they can get away with it; there are enough college students trying to get a foot in the door and who have other support systems.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#39Jeff said it best when he was asked the question at an event in Boston, "What is better, YC or TechStars?"
Jeff's answer: "You can teach a hacker business, but you can't teach a businessman how to hack".
'nuff said.
Re: Announcing HackStars
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it. The employer actually hires most of their talent through the unpaid internship program. They get to see if the people who do the internship are really there because they want to learn and contribute regardless of monetary compensation. I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation, but the arrangement has taught me a great deal about how…
I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation Which is why using unpaid internships to screen your hires is unethical. It's an artfully disguised form of class discrimination. Lots of very smart and hardworking people cannot afford to work for free. Apparently those people are at a severe disadvantage when applying to work at your company. And it's not as if unpaid internships offer financ…
Unethical is way too harsh. This is NOT class discrimination. If you ask me,judging on the basis of GPA alone is class discrimination. Poor people don't stand a fighting chance.
But that's a slightly different argument. Unpaid internships don't impose requirements that would keep you from getting paid elsewhere, so regardless of your economic situation, you can decide how much you want to work. My employer doesn't care if you work 30 hours or 2 hours...they just want to see how much you enjoy doing the work.
Any smart and hardworking individual wouldn't be at a disadvantage because they could find a way to make it work.
For the record I'm pretty poor myself. I have two jobs to pay my bills. But I don't see anyone who has significantly more money having more of an advantage than me.