Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#371

Post by nice_byte » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:44 AM UTC

Sorreah wrote: post #366

nice_byte wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without concrete and public metrics of "merit", But there are such metrics. For example: * "I implemented feature X, which increased CTR by Y% thus increasing revenue by Z" * "New compression scheme reduces bandwidth usage by this much, allowing team B to implement their new feature without worrying about badnwidth usage too much" * "Team C, who uses our library, needed urgent help investigating a performance issue…

A bug might be as simple as a single character fix on a printed string, or as complex as performance isn't as good as we expected, so profile and rewrite parts of the entire application to get acceptable performance. Both count as a single unit in your "bugs fixed" metric. Or do we have meetings to play poker and assign points for bugs? Unless you're fixing tens of thousands of bugs I don't think you're going to have…

> A bug might be as simple as a single character fix on a printed string,

which could be really important if that single character was a decimal point that was screwing up sscanf in a european locale :-)

obviously, impact of the fixed bugs should be taken into account. It's pretty easy to measure too, by things like:

* is this bug affecting many customers? * is it affecting just one, but a really important one? * is this bug release-blocking?

etc.

If you try to game it, it will become very obvious.

> Rewrites, infrastructure, code reviewers, mentoring

Infrastructure is a feature in and of itself. Besides, doing things like improving a build system to reduce build times, or streamlining code review workflow has clear measurable impact. Every rewrite must have an observable measurable impact, otherwise it is simply not worth doing. Your mentees' performance is an excellent proxy to measure your quality as a mentor. Again, all of these can be assessed without much hand-waving.

Code reviews shouldn't even count towards your performance. It's just something that you have to do. (though arguably, if you have to do a lot of code reviews, then it's a clear signal that you're a valuable person on the team who knows a lot of detail about the system).

> There are no objective measures of productivity in the majority of cases for tech workers.

I think there clearly are, and I just listed some of them. Sometimes they're hard to boil down to a single number, but in most cases you can easily tell who's doing meaningful work.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#372

Post by smokedoutraider » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:46 AM UTC

All this post really shows is that you shouldn't hire people simply for diversity's sake, especially not when their primary concern is social justice related questions instead of skills and ability. The fact that a post like this, by a writer as delusional and out of touch with reality as this, is being upvoted is an indication that this community has completely lost its mind.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#373

Post by kybernetikos » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:50 AM UTC

HelloWorldInWS wrote: post #313

s73ver wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then define "Best". The problem is, you can't come up with an objective metric for it.

Defining "best" need not imply an objective definition in the same way that describing the "best" database architecture for a given set of requirements isn't entirely objective: "our programmers like to work with SQL more than MongoDB" is a subjective but sufficient argument to tip the scales. Defining the "best people" is _obviously_ subjective. _People_ are subjective. There isn't just one "best"-- there is a set o…

> Meritocracy is an idea, not a specification-- there is no one true meritocracy implementation. The discussion needs to start from there.

Im not convinced it does. If you want to say meritocracy says merely that we should try to hire the best people all things considered then no-one would disagree. The disagreement is precisely about which things it's appropriate to consider.

Typically meritocratic systems in practice make the assumption that it is possible to determine merit outside the context of a specific team. I think this assumption is highly suspect. Merit is not a fixed characteristic of the individual but rather an emergent property of them in their context and in relationship with those around them.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#374

Post by sah2ed » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:54 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #287

Jare wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine most seasoned professionals placed on a PIP will probably already have a reasonable guess if it's a BS posture or honest attempt to fix a problem. If not from the get go, definitely by the first 1:1. I guess, it doesn't really matter what the company calls this process or how it's presented, only how it is conducted. If you even mildly agree with the reasons presented for it, and you get positive feedback s…

I would imagine that most seasoned professionals who can tell this don't put themselves in a position where they are likely to get PIPed in the first place. If it's a culture fit problem, they remove themselves from consideration at organizations that don't share their values. If it's a skill problem, they work like hell to correct the problem before their manager notices.

> they remove themselves from consideration at organizations that don't share their values.

Not necessarily feasible in all situations. Sometimes a seasoned professional is only able to find out about culture fit after working there for a while.

Like Chris Lattner recently found out that he didn't belong at Tesla.

https://mobile.twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812...

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#375

Post by juki » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:55 AM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #223

throwaway8800 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or because they shut down the conversation at some point. That's the vibe I got from her post (that the conversation just stopped at a certain point), but that's really my point; in adult, human interactions, if you behave in ways that people find unacceptable, people can and will at one point simply say, "I've had enough" and shut down further dialogue because they do not find communicating with you to be construc…

You're correct about this, so, let me be clearer: In my experience, they ghost; or they start ghosted. Yes, there's a point at which you're completely justified in shutting down further dialogue because you do not find the communication constructive or productive. That point is after you have said that you do not find the communication constructive or productive. (It sounds like your impression from the OP is that th…

> are you sure you're not yourself requiring me to adopt to your communication modalities?

They are. That's the whole point. If someone comes to try and convince you of their point, you can either listen and engage in a discussion, or if you believe that isn't going to work out, you can refuse. Both are valid options and necessary at times.

Likewise if you want to convince someone of your point and they refuse to listen to you, you can either change your approach so that they do, or declare them a lost cause and move on. Both are again valid options and necessary at times.

The problem is when you keep trying the approach that the other person doesn't want to listen to. That will just alienate them further, and can easily turn into harassment.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#376

Post by sgt » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:55 AM UTC

avenoir wrote: post #94

> "What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender". I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read: > "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question…

Maybe she is right, but I've never in my life seen a form that explicitly asks "Are you transgender". So I don't agree that this is a 101 mistake. Most forms ask "Male" or "Female", and that's it.

The fact that Github asked "Transgender" in addition to this shouldn't be seen as offensive, as I am sure they were doing this simply to make sure transgendered people felt included too. Sadly a good deed is not always appreciated.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#377

Post by sgt » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 7:58 AM UTC

fenwick67 wrote: post #106

ivraatiems wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this person is unusual in her communication style? She posted the complete text of the "problem" comment. If you got that message from a colleague, would you consider it unacceptable? Why or why not? If yes, what could she have said that would have made it OK? How would you answer her core question of whether or not the comment she made is appropriate?

Re-structure the question and switch gender out for cake flavors. "What flavor of cake do you prefer? Chocolate, vanilla, or sheetcake?" the feedback coming back as... "'Sheetcake' is not a flavor. Sheetcake may be vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, lemon-poppyseed... If you want to know if a survey respondent likes sheetcake, you need to explicitly ask that question." ... it does seem kinda grating but not overtly so.…

The more I think of it, this whole thing is like something out of Portlandia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portlandia_(TV_series)

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#378

Post by noufalibrahim » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 8:06 AM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #322

noufalibrahim wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an interesting book. I'd appreciate if you could let me know if you recollect the name. As someone who has poohpoohed the idea of a human resources department in a large company, I've almost done a 180 on it now that I have a small company of my own and I'd be very interested in reading some good books on the utility and function of the organisation in a large company.

In case you don't see, someone said "Corporate Confidential".

Thank you.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#379

Post by Gaelan » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 8:09 AM UTC

det0x wrote: post #274

throwaway8800 wrote: post #128

There's a couple of issues that stand out to me: Github is engaging in risky behaviour by reaching out to individuals (specifically activists) for hire explicitly on the basis of "diversity" and trying to incorporate those individuals in a highly merit-based environment. Secondly, Coraline seems to think that human relationships are a one way street: that she is entitled to be direct and even confrontational or insen…

> She told me that the data scientist who had written the survey questions was very upset and had gone to her manager to complain about me. >This was the first instance of what came to be referred to as my "non-empathetic communication style". I like how she was pissed when she was "out victim-ed" HA! I think you are right, employees like this have an bigger agenda they are focused on rather than doing work of the co…

She said in Twitter that she inadvertently signed away the right to release after 72 hours.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#380

Post by blockmeamadeus » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 8:09 AM UTC

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #75

problems wrote: post #12

Isn't this the person who ran a code of conduct that has a website which includes things like "thoughtless use of pronouns" and mentions meritocracy as an evil, not a goal to strive for? Can't really say I'm expecting someone like that to be low friction.

Meritocracy is actually a very damaging thing, the way we tend to implement it in tech. Without concrete and public metrics of "merit", it becomes a buzzword for reinforcing the biases (conscious or not) of the evaluators. Particularly in tech, those biases tend to favor white, upper middle class, males. This kind of bias is demonstrated over and over in studies, even (and in some cases, especially) among people who…

It's true that Meritocracy alone overlooks the differences in opportunity people have starting out. Still, I think the criticism is somewhat misguided.

I like to think about Neurosurgery to illustrate: if you need a tumor removed from your brain, would you rather have the surgeon be a privileged, elite surgeon from Harvard, or some random dude from the streets?

We should be happy that we are able to produce elite Neurosurgeons, and strive to give more people the opportunity (including random dudes from the street). Attacking elite Neurosurgeons is completely counterproductive.