5 ms·

Self-Taught Software Engineers: Why Open Source Is Important to Us

76 points by nreece 10y ago

torkable 10y ago
nods sagely
faitswulff 10y ago
> I then created a new repository on GitHub and created my own network scanner for iOS called MMLanScan (The reason I didn’t create a pull request back to original project it’s because it was abandoned). This seems a bit like his early attempts to sell free Ubuntu discs. Hopefully he got the wording slightly wrong and forked it instead of starting a brand new repository with no attribution.
- myhf 10y ago
  https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths
  - andrewflnr 10y ago
    That was fascinating, but I don't quite see the application here.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      If what the grandparent comment pointed out was deliberate rather than a goof by a inexperienced developer, then it steps right into the sociopath box. And frankly the article is so relevant to current goings on in the FOSS world that it hurts reading it.
- throwaway_exer 10y ago
  Not sure what's wrong with selling Ubuntu disks. Initially, Stallman made a living selling GNU tapes, and pre-Internet, linux was often installed by a "friend" who made the stack of 40 floppies and charged a few bucks to cover his time and media expenses.
bigger_cheese 10y ago
Slightly off topic but one thing I've long been curious about is what are the requirements to call yourself 'software engineer' as a job title? In many parts of the world claiming to be an engineer (in a professional capacity) without the required qualifications opens you (and your employer) up to all sorts of liability issues. I am a Materials Engineer I've long suspected the software engineer title is not regulated anywhere near as heavily.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  AFAIK, it's not regulated at all - certainly nowhere in the US that I've lived. But... I don't call myself a materials engineer, which probably has some sort of licensing or regulation, no?
  - bigger_cheese 10y ago
    It was more of a curiosity mostly centered around liability. I was curious for example what happens if you write a piece of safety critical software and it fails. Can you be found at fault as the author? Where does the responsibility lie is it with your employer who hired you on the presumption of qualifications?
    - trprog 10y ago
      >who hired you on the presumption of qualifications? This whole line of thinking doesn't really apply to software development. Formal qualifications are, at best, only required to get you a first interview. Formal software development qualifications are generally regarded as being only tangentially related to the ability to do the job.
      - bigger_cheese 10y ago
        How do companies avoid being found negligent i.e. Could a company be sued for hiring someone grossly incompetent on the basis they did not vet the employees competence? I'd always presumed there were similar requirements (i.e open source licenses often disclaim liability for code released under them)
Walkman 10y ago
The biggest barrier of contributing back is that it takes a lot of time and effort (even for small projects) which you are not obliged to make. A lot of the time the driver for contribution is only the person's internal belief that he/she has to do it and honestly sometimes even when you want to contribute back, you don't have enough time or energy after 8+ hours of work. It can be a big difference if the library author allows contributions much-much easier to make.
saurabhjha 10y ago
Some open source projects have "Easy to Fix" issues to get people on the roll (like Scikit-Learn), but many don't. Some have overview of their source code and their design principles (like Redis) but many don't. Some have good documentation of how to get your patches in main tree but many (especially those not hosted on github) don't have it. Most notably for C/C++ projects, the undocumented dependencies to build the library can waste hours at a time. Open source is great (I have contributed to a couple of projects) but not all projects are equal in terms of quality/easy-to-hack. Brad Fitzpatrick has also written quite a bit about this http://brad.livejournal.com/2409049.html http://brad.livejournal.com/2409049.html
cdevs 10y ago
I learned a lot about what I was lacking or what was expected of me in early interviews, it's as if we need a few more blogs like this and some transcribed interviews to prepare people for those "oh shoot I forgot to learn something simple" moments. It's going to happen for college kids and self thought no matter what. If this were a intern job he would have still gotten it and been trained on git. The OS X time machine reply is priceless though...I can remember the copy a folder for backup every hour programming days...horrible times:)

76 points by nreece 10y ago

nods sagely

> I then created a new repository on GitHub and created my own network scanner for iOS called MMLanScan (The reason I didn’t create a pull request back to original project it’s because it was abandoned). This seems a bit like his early attempts to sell free Ubuntu discs. Hopefully he got the wording slightly wrong and forked it instead of starting a brand new repository with no attribution.

myhf 10y ago
https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  That was fascinating, but I don't quite see the application here.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    If what the grandparent comment pointed out was deliberate rather than a goof by a inexperienced developer, then it steps right into the sociopath box. And frankly the article is so relevant to current goings on in the FOSS world that it hurts reading it.
throwaway_exer 10y ago
Not sure what's wrong with selling Ubuntu disks. Initially, Stallman made a living selling GNU tapes, and pre-Internet, linux was often installed by a "friend" who made the stack of 40 floppies and charged a few bucks to cover his time and media expenses.

bigger_cheese 10y ago

Slightly off topic but one thing I've long been curious about is what are the requirements to call yourself 'software engineer' as a job title? In many parts of the world claiming to be an engineer (in a professional capacity) without the required qualifications opens you (and your employer) up to all sorts of liability issues. I am a Materials Engineer I've long suspected the software engineer title is not regulated anywhere near as heavily.

mgkimsal 10y ago
AFAIK, it's not regulated at all - certainly nowhere in the US that I've lived. But... I don't call myself a materials engineer, which probably has some sort of licensing or regulation, no?
- bigger_cheese 10y ago
  It was more of a curiosity mostly centered around liability. I was curious for example what happens if you write a piece of safety critical software and it fails. Can you be found at fault as the author? Where does the responsibility lie is it with your employer who hired you on the presumption of qualifications?
  - trprog 10y ago
    >who hired you on the presumption of qualifications? This whole line of thinking doesn't really apply to software development. Formal qualifications are, at best, only required to get you a first interview. Formal software development qualifications are generally regarded as being only tangentially related to the ability to do the job.
    - bigger_cheese 10y ago
      How do companies avoid being found negligent i.e. Could a company be sued for hiring someone grossly incompetent on the basis they did not vet the employees competence? I'd always presumed there were similar requirements (i.e open source licenses often disclaim liability for code released under them)

Walkman 10y ago

The biggest barrier of contributing back is that it takes a lot of time and effort (even for small projects) which you are not obliged to make. A lot of the time the driver for contribution is only the person's internal belief that he/she has to do it and honestly sometimes even when you want to contribute back, you don't have enough time or energy after 8+ hours of work. It can be a big difference if the library author allows contributions much-much easier to make.

saurabhjha 10y ago

Some open source projects have "Easy to Fix" issues to get people on the roll (like Scikit-Learn), but many don't. Some have overview of their source code and their design principles (like Redis) but many don't. Some have good documentation of how to get your patches in main tree but many (especially those not hosted on github) don't have it. Most notably for C/C++ projects, the undocumented dependencies to build the library can waste hours at a time. Open source is great (I have contributed to a couple of projects) but not all projects are equal in terms of quality/easy-to-hack. Brad Fitzpatrick has also written quite a bit about this http://brad.livejournal.com/2409049.html http://brad.livejournal.com/2409049.html

cdevs 10y ago

I learned a lot about what I was lacking or what was expected of me in early interviews, it's as if we need a few more blogs like this and some transcribed interviews to prepare people for those "oh shoot I forgot to learn something simple" moments. It's going to happen for college kids and self thought no matter what. If this were a intern job he would have still gotten it and been trained on git. The OS X time machine reply is priceless though...I can remember the copy a folder for backup every hour programming days...horrible times:)