Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Year, New CEO for GitHub

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 98 posts

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#51

Post by jmduke »

Ryel wrote: post #49
georgemcbay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using total number of github commits as any sort of qualifier for employment is as bad (maybe even worse) as asking for a wc -l LOC count on your last project. To be clear, I don't have an issue with github contributions being seen as a plus for hiring... but trying to turn this into something concretely quantifiable via total commit count (especially on commits you can't even see) seems crazy to me. Please let me kn…

They are not(I hope) judging quality of my work based on # of commits. -They are assuming I have little to no experience in a service they use every day. -They are assuming I don't contribute to Open Source in any way (I contribute to private repos that are at the core of several large OS projects but are private for business concerns). -Github provides an easy metric to see what most of my work is. I can see that 45…

How would you handle this case if the work you're doing that's being stored on private GitHub repositories wasn't on GitHub at all (like the majority of tech work that employees do for their employer)?

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#52

Post by devcpp »

jmduke wrote: post #5

GitHub's growth in 2013 has been fascinating to watch. They've been relentless with new functionality, and the overwhelming trend with that new functionality is a marked increase in the scope of their operations: stuff like generic data support, baked-in visualizations, and quality-of-life improvements points to the conclusion that GitHub is going to stop being the "best place to share code with friends, co-workers,…

Well, it seems to me like they have only been implementing closed mechanisms instead of standardizing stuff, using public resources and/or opening their code. I hope that I'm wrong and it's just my pessimism talking.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#53

Post by alexcroox »

shmerl wrote: post #40
frandroid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not worth invoking a flash container for 4 seconds of video.

Did I say anything about Flash? I was talking about a video tag. And are you saying that a 4 seconds video in the video tag will be less efficient than an img tag with an animated GIF? Personally I see no point in using GIFs, unless on a site which allows embedding images, but not videos. On a site which you control, video tag works just fine.

I think they can spend the following required time on better things:

- Deal with cross browser inconsistencies with html5 video.

- Create a poster image for the video

- Save the video format in mp4, ogg, webm

- Save out and build flash alternative for older browsers

...

...

- Realize that a gif probably would have been the best option for this post.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#55

Post by shmerl »

alexcroox wrote: post #53
shmerl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I say anything about Flash? I was talking about a video tag. And are you saying that a 4 seconds video in the video tag will be less efficient than an img tag with an animated GIF? Personally I see no point in using GIFs, unless on a site which allows embedding images, but not videos. On a site which you control, video tag works just fine.

I think they can spend the following required time on better things: - Deal with cross browser inconsistencies with html5 video. - Create a poster image for the video - Save the video format in mp4, ogg, webm - Save out and build flash alternative for older browsers ... ... - Realize that a gif probably would have been the best option for this post.

I'd simply:

- ignore older browsers (today practically all browsers support the video tag, caring about older browsers in this context is like caring about IE6, i.e. it's bad).

- stick with a compromise solution (H.264, yeah that's sad, but until Daala will come this mess will remain, but now Firefox already supports H.264 easily, so it's not a problem anymore). If the space allows it, I wouldn't mind encoding in both WebM and MP4, just for the sake of supporting free formats.

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#56

Post by Ryel »

jmduke wrote: post #51
Ryel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not(I hope) judging quality of my work based on # of commits. -They are assuming I have little to no experience in a service they use every day. -They are assuming I don't contribute to Open Source in any way (I contribute to private repos that are at the core of several large OS projects but are private for business concerns). -Github provides an easy metric to see what most of my work is. I can see that 45…

How would you handle this case if the work you're doing that's being stored on private GitHub repositories wasn't on GitHub at all (like the majority of tech work that employees do for their employer)?

I see what you're hinting at but the point of that question is lost on me.

That's like going up to Elon Musk and asking, why make electric cars when most people drive internal combustion engines?

Re: New Year, New CEO for GitHub

#59

Post by deeths »

j_baker wrote: post #43
deeths wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are a lot of responsibilities that might vary company-to-company, the CEO reports to the Board of Directors (who represent the shareholders). Shareholders have control over the company because they can elect the Board of Directors (and depending on structure the CEO). The board has control because they get a vote on important matters like major officers and big expenditures. Depending on structure, they m…

The CEO most certainly does not represent the shareholders. The shareholders elect a board to represent them. The CEO represents the company's management, and is responsible for attaining the goals the board sets for him/her. It's worth pointing out that those goals aren't necessarily getting a high stock price or maximizing revenue. Lately, there have been a number of companies that set goals that have more to do wi…

Sorry, it should have read: "Because the CEO represents the interests of the shareholders".

While the CEO is not (absent other roles) a representative of the shareholders (as you pointed out), there is a legal duty of loyalty to act in the best interest of the shareholders.

So while not a representative of the shareholders, the CEO is always responsible for representing the interests of the shareholders.

As you stated, those goals aren't necessarily related to the stock price or maximizing revenue. However, if the interest of the shareholders is something other than those goals, the CEO still has a legal fiduciary responsibility to act as a representative of the shareholder interests that do exist.

Post reply on HN