5 ms·

I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).

sidlls 9y ago
And such a person shouldn't be hired. I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack. It's not because I don't or couldn't understand it in short order, and very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. It's because I have strong biases against it and the kind of development style it attracts, some of which (as illustrated in this very comment) aren't really empirically or otherwise similarly justifiable. They're just biases that haven't a good justification. I usually keep this sort of bias to myself because I recognize it for what it is. Honestly though I wouldn't apply for such positions, either, so the bias problem never surfaces.
- lurr 9y ago
  > very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. how is this type of attitude not sufficient reason to not bother hiring someone? I immediately don't want to work with or for you.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    From my comment: "I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack.... They're just biases that haven't a good justification." I know this. And I wouldn't want to work with JS devs. At all. It's a win-win for all of us that I don't apply to those positions.
    - lurr 9y ago
      I wouldn't want to work with you on anything, as I strongly suspect your attitude extends well beyond javascript.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        You think having preferences, and being aware of them, and avoiding environments not in line with them, makes him a bad prospective co-worker?
        Bahamut 9y ago
        Having preferences is one thing, but being judgmental/presumptuous towards people working in that realm & using slang with a clear derogatory bent to describe them for something that does not inherently relate to morals is another. It’s a sign of a bad attitude.
        golergka 9y ago
        It's a sign of a very healthy attitude to be open about your opinions and not trying to be "nice" all the time. This is a very american thing, to be constantly positive and nice when you really shouldn't, and in my experience, it's a very detrimental thing to morale and productivity because of how obviously fake it is.
        Bahamut 9y ago
        What you are saying is very different than the person’s comments I was referring to. One can be blunt without displaying a trashy attitude, and it doesn’t take that much effort. Most people tell me that I am the most blunt person they know in that I will give some of the most honest observations whether they are uncomfortable or not. I also have a reputation of being one of the nicest people many people know, never needing to put down one group of people to appease another, probably one of the biggest engineering productivity killers one can create (negative politics, cliques, etc.). Engineers often will vent to me (coworkers, teammates, people from various programming communities, etc.), and I lend a sympathetic ear to all, which in turn builds trust, comraderie, and helps use my knowledge & experiences to help guide responses & resolutions to situations generating stress to a healthy outcome for all. It shouldn’t take much effort to treat each person with respect & humanity - if it does, one should look inwards at maybe something being wrong with oneself than to other people, and work on culling out the toxic attitude.
com2kid 9y ago
> I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it). I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. People need to be aware of the limitations of their tools. I spent years in pure C, both complaining about it and singing its praises. Right now I'm in JS land, and I can do the same thing. I started off in C#. No real complaints there, except for the lack of stack alloc, and that got added in the most recent version. :-D
- mrisoli 9y ago
  > I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. I only interviewed a few of candidates for developer roles a couple of times and this was one of the questions I asked, managed to get some interesting, constructive responses as well as some well-crafted bullshit.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
From experience, companies won't hire you if you express a strong distaste for their software stack. I learned this after I told the interviewer that I thought that PHP was a crap language, when interviewing for a PHP developer position.
- tracker1 9y ago
  I tend to feel the same wrt Java, not so much the language, but the tooling around the language feels like such a pain. I always hated PHP. I've worked with them both though. I happen to like the one language to rule them all (JS).
- hrktb 9y ago
  Honestly that doesn’t seem a bad decision. You will be eating PHP day in day out. It would be a bad choice for the company if they had candidates who otherwise don’t care that much about PHP’s problems, and a disservice to you if you could otherwise find equivalent jobs in a language you like better. Working in a PHP shop, nobody would care to shit on PHP during an interview. We know the shortcommings, it just doesn’t really matter that much.
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    I'm definitely not criticising them for their decision. I honestly probably wouldn't've liked working with PHP all day long, especially since the job would've been working with quite a lot of legacy code.
vitno 9y ago
I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.
- aurelianito 9y ago
  I think that c++ is an horrendous collection of disgusting hacks. I also work as a c++ developer. If I were hiring for a c++ Dev role I wouldn't hire someone who cannot point out several problems with c++, as the main difficulty of the job is to avoid those tar pits.
- user5994461 9y ago
  C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    Linus Torvalds is perhaps the perfect depiction of this.
    - jmalicki 9y ago
      Linus Torvalds doesn't program in C++ at all, only C.
      - icelancer 9y ago
        That's the joke, yes.
- peralmq 9y ago
  Feel like I have to share this hilarious fake interview with Stroustroup (creator of C++) here http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml

sidlls 9y ago

And such a person shouldn't be hired. I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack. It's not because I don't or couldn't understand it in short order, and very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. It's because I have strong biases against it and the kind of development style it attracts, some of which (as illustrated in this very comment) aren't really empirically or otherwise similarly justifiable. They're just biases that haven't a good justification. I usually keep this sort of bias to myself because I recognize it for what it is. Honestly though I wouldn't apply for such positions, either, so the bias problem never surfaces.

lurr 9y ago
> very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. how is this type of attitude not sufficient reason to not bother hiring someone? I immediately don't want to work with or for you.
- sidlls 9y ago
  From my comment: "I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack.... They're just biases that haven't a good justification." I know this. And I wouldn't want to work with JS devs. At all. It's a win-win for all of us that I don't apply to those positions.
  - lurr 9y ago
    I wouldn't want to work with you on anything, as I strongly suspect your attitude extends well beyond javascript.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      You think having preferences, and being aware of them, and avoiding environments not in line with them, makes him a bad prospective co-worker?
      - Bahamut 9y ago
        Having preferences is one thing, but being judgmental/presumptuous towards people working in that realm & using slang with a clear derogatory bent to describe them for something that does not inherently relate to morals is another. It’s a sign of a bad attitude.
        golergka 9y ago
        It's a sign of a very healthy attitude to be open about your opinions and not trying to be "nice" all the time. This is a very american thing, to be constantly positive and nice when you really shouldn't, and in my experience, it's a very detrimental thing to morale and productivity because of how obviously fake it is.
        Bahamut 9y ago
        What you are saying is very different than the person’s comments I was referring to. One can be blunt without displaying a trashy attitude, and it doesn’t take that much effort. Most people tell me that I am the most blunt person they know in that I will give some of the most honest observations whether they are uncomfortable or not. I also have a reputation of being one of the nicest people many people know, never needing to put down one group of people to appease another, probably one of the biggest engineering productivity killers one can create (negative politics, cliques, etc.). Engineers often will vent to me (coworkers, teammates, people from various programming communities, etc.), and I lend a sympathetic ear to all, which in turn builds trust, comraderie, and helps use my knowledge & experiences to help guide responses & resolutions to situations generating stress to a healthy outcome for all. It shouldn’t take much effort to treat each person with respect & humanity - if it does, one should look inwards at maybe something being wrong with oneself than to other people, and work on culling out the toxic attitude.

com2kid 9y ago

> I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it). I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. People need to be aware of the limitations of their tools. I spent years in pure C, both complaining about it and singing its praises. Right now I'm in JS land, and I can do the same thing. I started off in C#. No real complaints there, except for the lack of stack alloc, and that got added in the most recent version. :-D

mrisoli 9y ago
> I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. I only interviewed a few of candidates for developer roles a couple of times and this was one of the questions I asked, managed to get some interesting, constructive responses as well as some well-crafted bullshit.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

From experience, companies won't hire you if you express a strong distaste for their software stack. I learned this after I told the interviewer that I thought that PHP was a crap language, when interviewing for a PHP developer position.

tracker1 9y ago
I tend to feel the same wrt Java, not so much the language, but the tooling around the language feels like such a pain. I always hated PHP. I've worked with them both though. I happen to like the one language to rule them all (JS).
hrktb 9y ago
Honestly that doesn’t seem a bad decision. You will be eating PHP day in day out. It would be a bad choice for the company if they had candidates who otherwise don’t care that much about PHP’s problems, and a disservice to you if you could otherwise find equivalent jobs in a language you like better. Working in a PHP shop, nobody would care to shit on PHP during an interview. We know the shortcommings, it just doesn’t really matter that much.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  I'm definitely not criticising them for their decision. I honestly probably wouldn't've liked working with PHP all day long, especially since the job would've been working with quite a lot of legacy code.

vitno 9y ago

I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.

aurelianito 9y ago
I think that c++ is an horrendous collection of disgusting hacks. I also work as a c++ developer. If I were hiring for a c++ Dev role I wouldn't hire someone who cannot point out several problems with c++, as the main difficulty of the job is to avoid those tar pits.
user5994461 9y ago
C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.
- icelancer 9y ago
  Linus Torvalds is perhaps the perfect depiction of this.
  - jmalicki 9y ago
    Linus Torvalds doesn't program in C++ at all, only C.
    - icelancer 9y ago
      That's the joke, yes.
peralmq 9y ago
Feel like I have to share this hilarious fake interview with Stroustroup (creator of C++) here http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml