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The black market in GitHub stars

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Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#41

Post by ygjb »

geraldwhen wrote: post #40
eschneider wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Genuinely curious, which jurisdictions is it actually illegal?

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#42

Post by catlover76 »

tedivm wrote: post #22
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.

In my experience it's a positive sign to have an active Github profile or open source contributions, but it is not a negative sign if a candidate doesn't have one. At higher levels (Principal, Distinguished) you often have to show external contributions to the industry, and some companies count open source towards this. I can honestly say that my profile has been a huge benefit to my career, but that's more due to 20…

I am infinitely less qualified/smart than you, but I will steal your format for my own shitty and lame accolades and accomplishments nonetheless

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#44

Post by janalsncm »

nocommandline wrote: post #8
kelsey9876543 wrote: post #6

it won't help, when given a github profile most people will go read your actual commits we do not give a darn about stars

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.

If we look at “best” more broadly, popularity isn’t a terrible metric. I want a library to be actively fixing bugs and I want support if things aren’t behaving as expected. Stars is a rough measure, but we can look at resolved issues as a better metric.

A popular project will have a healthy distribution of types of issues, from novices asking newbie questions to experienced devs making feature PRs. It will also have several contributors.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#45

Post by ethanbond »

paulgb wrote: post #32
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.

+1 seems like a much "better"/more valuable signal to game for startups built on OSS than for individuals.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#48

Post by jokethrowaway »

arghwhat wrote: post #19
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 can anecdotally attest to contact and employment happening solely based on Github profile - without it containing anything impressive - in Scandinavia, as well as a few cases where the profile was used as input in a regular interview process. Do what you want with that info.

Same, albeit they had no idea about its content.

Same as for linkedin

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#49

Post by da768 »

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.

Don't know, but you can definitely find GitHub profiles built on reattributing other people's PRs to OSS projects, and they end up working for Google.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#50

Post by jokethrowaway »

nextaccountic wrote: post #26
mlsu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 5-second test: - look at "latest commit." 4 years ago is not good. 2 days ago is good. The 30-second test: - total number of commits. number of active branches. number of PRs. The 5 minute test: - are there PRs? How many open PRs vs how many closed? Is there lively discussion in PRs? - how many different contributors are there? 1 contributor is OK (and often means that the library will be very coherent) but multi…

in old languages that don't encourage tons of dependencies like C, it's okay to call a library finished and stop developing it, so last commit 4 years ago is ok in a language like rust or typescript, depending on what the library does, and specially if it has a lot of dependencies, should probably be maintained continually. so in Rust last commit 4 years ago looks very bad

I agree with js but disagree on rust

Rust libraries from 4 years ago are still working, js libraries are a hit or miss

Then frontend is way worse than backend

Overall if the code is old but well written, I'm happy to own a fork

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