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Do they have a sense of humor about their political views? As a practical matter, I think having a sense of humor is important, especially on small teams. Someo

Do they have a sense of humor about their political views? As a practical matter, I think having a sense of humor is important, especially on small teams. Someone might have political views that I disagree with it, but the important reality is how they handle themselves in regards to those issues, and how do they handle disagreement from others. Some people get angry when others have different views - and I think these people need to be avoided. Other people meet disagreement with a bit of humor - I think these people are easier to deal with, even if their views are somewhat extreme.

gregwebs 16y ago
Not having a sense of humor about something like political beliefs is a good sign that someone is accepting dogma on the subject. This could make them more likely to accept dogma for things important to work also. I also wonder if people think it is hacker-like to have strong political beliefs. Maybe I am way of base, but I always thought of hackers as being more apolitical, or at least not enjoying (pointless) political arguments. It is one thing to be adamantly against software patents, or to focus on a few issues that you can do something about, but another to spend a lot of time on something as unproductive as politics.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  but another to spend a lot of time on something as unproductive as politics I disagree strongly. Some hackers like politics, others don't. Neither choice is more hacker-like. I find politics interesting because I like seeing how institutional structure leads to outcomes; as a corollary, I find 95% of political reporting to be garbage, so my perspective on politics might be unusual. But that seems like a very hacker-like perspective: political outcomes are emergent properties of institutional structures that resulted from random compromise and contingent events. Tweak the structure here and look what changes.... In terms of unproductivity, I feel the same way about C++. I mean, the language is so obviously fundamentally broken that I weep when considering how much time has been wasted fixing problems that only arise because of C++'s brokenness. That doesn't mean that I think it is always the wrong choice, but I am astounded when I encounter people who C++ is a well designed language. It feels like talking to someone who claims the government is controlling their thoughts with an implant in their tooth.

gregwebs 16y ago

Not having a sense of humor about something like political beliefs is a good sign that someone is accepting dogma on the subject. This could make them more likely to accept dogma for things important to work also. I also wonder if people think it is hacker-like to have strong political beliefs. Maybe I am way of base, but I always thought of hackers as being more apolitical, or at least not enjoying (pointless) political arguments. It is one thing to be adamantly against software patents, or to focus on a few issues that you can do something about, but another to spend a lot of time on something as unproductive as politics.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
but another to spend a lot of time on something as unproductive as politics I disagree strongly. Some hackers like politics, others don't. Neither choice is more hacker-like. I find politics interesting because I like seeing how institutional structure leads to outcomes; as a corollary, I find 95% of political reporting to be garbage, so my perspective on politics might be unusual. But that seems like a very hacker-like perspective: political outcomes are emergent properties of institutional structures that resulted from random compromise and contingent events. Tweak the structure here and look what changes.... In terms of unproductivity, I feel the same way about C++. I mean, the language is so obviously fundamentally broken that I weep when considering how much time has been wasted fixing problems that only arise because of C++'s brokenness. That doesn't mean that I think it is always the wrong choice, but I am astounded when I encounter people who C++ is a well designed language. It feels like talking to someone who claims the government is controlling their thoughts with an implant in their tooth.