5 ms·

I think because that's where the bulk of the community is for "greybeard unix open source" technology. The generalised answer, I would think, is "be visible or

by angusgr 16y ago

I think because that's where the bulk of the community is for "greybeard unix open source" technology. The generalised answer, I would think, is "be visible or at least present in the online community that exists around your chosen technologies". (I didn't post the parent reply, but I did upvote it!)

dinkumthinkum 16y ago
I just disagree with the current mantra that you have to be so out there and in the public to be a worthwhile programmer. Many great programmers really aren't interested in tweeting every time they figure out what a hashtable is or whatever.I think it would be suspect if one was not aware of mailing lists and didn't at least lurk through them as a resources but as far as being an active participant, I think it's a bit over-hyped.
- lsc 16y ago
  For many kinds of programming, you are right. But if you hit a bug in the kernel, you are probably going to communicate with others (probably on a mailing list) in the process of fixing that bug. Same goes for hitting bugs in any other open-source part of UNIX. I mean, sure, if you are writing an application, this only applies on the shared library bits. But I was specifically talking about advanced *NIX people... people who would be expected to deal with bugs in open-source products.
  - ryanjkirk 16y ago
    I'm a customer of yours. Out of curiosity, what mailing lists do you participate in?
    - lsc 16y ago
      xen-users, xen-devel, NANOG (oh man, I'm about 8K messages behind on that one) freeside-devel opensc-user dns-operations svlug lopsa-tech wear-hard centos-virt freebsd-xen netbsd-xen and a few others. If I'm working on an open source project, even in a minor way I usually subscribe to the list so I can lurk and ask questions in a more intelligent manner... For a while I was on the qemu mailing list (I think I even posted a stupid patch.) I'm leaving off the -announce lists I'm on to listen for security vulns because I don't post there, but they are essential for any computer janitor. I'd recommend a search on "Luke S. Crawford" as most of these lists have public archives that are indexed by google and other popular search engines. Actually, I'm sure you'll notice that I'm more active here than on any of those lists... this is probably a bad thing for my technical career development. (perhaps a good thing for my career development as a business person, though.) Edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying you should ask an applicant what lists s/he is active on... by itself that won't give you that much information (well, except maybe that if a SysAdmin is not on a bunch of security announce lists, something is very wrong but expecting them to remember this data without going through their mailbox is pretty unreasonable.) you should figure that out. maybe ask them what usernames they use on technical forms that they'd like to share? (note, as an employer, you have to be careful not to be creepy when you do this. Most of us have a 'professional identity' we don't mind sharing... but you don't want to look like the kind of employer who goes through employee's myspace profiles looking for drunken party pictures.)
      - Poiesis 16y ago
        Wear-hard! I didn't think that one would still be alive and kicking. It's not exactly what most employers would be looking for, I guess. I lost interest in wear-hard when I realized that smartphones pretty much did everything I needed a wearable to do and also got out of my way when I needed them to. But all these mailing lists, they take serious time . For me, they're really the first thing to go.
        lsc 16y ago
        I was wondering if anyone was going to catch that one. Wear-hard, certainly, won't take up much of your time. It's just about dead these days, but every now and then someone talks about their rig which usually triggers a bunch of responses like yours. I don't think smartphones are quite there yet. Most of the way, though. A bluetooth twiddler would about do it. Lists I can ignore (e.g. everything but the security -announce lists) go in their own folders to be ignored, most of the time. but they are a good substitute for HN, if you want a more technically oriented and less business oriented discussion, and they are essential if you really want to figure out a tough bug or add a new feature, so having a presence on the mailing lists (even if you don't read them every day) is really useful.
  - lolname 16y ago
    I've worked with a lot of truly top-notch Unix folks, and VERY few of them have a meaningful mailing list presence.
    - lsc 16y ago
      are you sure? I mean, I know sometimes months or years after I leave a place I recognize an ex-co worker on a mailing list. If they really don't post, then what do they do when they find bugs? fix it and keep it to themselves?
      - lolname 16y ago
        Yes. I'm sure. (I just googled a couple of the most prominent names.) They work around it, or more often they realize that somebody else has found the same bug and just track that. Or they'll feel generous and submit a fix via some bug tracking system other than a mailing list. If you're using that as a proxy for unix-fu, you should know that it's a REALLY shitty proxy in my (roughly 20 years) of experience.
        lsc 16y ago
        well, the phenomena of using bugzilla and other web based bug tracking systems is a fairly recent one. And certainly if they are posting good stuff, it doesn't really matter if they are posting good stuff on a mailing list or on a bugzilla or what have you. I'm just making a historical observation that the people who have been around a while tend to use mailing lists. but yeah, I do think there is something a little fishy about a SysAdmin who doesn't have any public evidence of collaboration. I mean, sure, they could be really good and just have worked places that don't let you give your changes back, but eh, you can say that about any other metric. You must have added a feature to something at some point. You must have been the first user to find a particular bug at some point. The biggest problem with this metric is that search kind of sucks for mailing lists. I mean, usenet used to be /the place/ for this sort of thing, but usenet is dead, and as far as I can tell, much of the usenet archives that at one point I could access via dejanews are gone (groups.google does not have some of the posts that I know are there.)
  - dinkumthinkum 16y ago
    See, I know OS researchers (very published) that spend 100% of their time in the kernel and never bother with LKML. And these people are pretty damn good! I think it's just not the best method to guage.
    - lsc 16y ago
      well, if you are published, that should also show up online. People who are published usually are a higher pay grade than I'm allowed to hire for, so I don't worry about it too much, but choosing people who are published, I think, would actually be a very similar metric (though, much more expensive) to looking at people's patches.
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by angusgr 16y ago

dinkumthinkum 16y ago

I just disagree with the current mantra that you have to be so out there and in the public to be a worthwhile programmer. Many great programmers really aren't interested in tweeting every time they figure out what a hashtable is or whatever.I think it would be suspect if one was not aware of mailing lists and didn't at least lurk through them as a resources but as far as being an active participant, I think it's a bit over-hyped.

lsc 16y ago
For many kinds of programming, you are right. But if you hit a bug in the kernel, you are probably going to communicate with others (probably on a mailing list) in the process of fixing that bug. Same goes for hitting bugs in any other open-source part of UNIX. I mean, sure, if you are writing an application, this only applies on the shared library bits. But I was specifically talking about advanced *NIX people... people who would be expected to deal with bugs in open-source products.
- ryanjkirk 16y ago
  I'm a customer of yours. Out of curiosity, what mailing lists do you participate in?
  - lsc 16y ago
    xen-users, xen-devel, NANOG (oh man, I'm about 8K messages behind on that one) freeside-devel opensc-user dns-operations svlug lopsa-tech wear-hard centos-virt freebsd-xen netbsd-xen and a few others. If I'm working on an open source project, even in a minor way I usually subscribe to the list so I can lurk and ask questions in a more intelligent manner... For a while I was on the qemu mailing list (I think I even posted a stupid patch.) I'm leaving off the -announce lists I'm on to listen for security vulns because I don't post there, but they are essential for any computer janitor. I'd recommend a search on "Luke S. Crawford" as most of these lists have public archives that are indexed by google and other popular search engines. Actually, I'm sure you'll notice that I'm more active here than on any of those lists... this is probably a bad thing for my technical career development. (perhaps a good thing for my career development as a business person, though.) Edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying you should ask an applicant what lists s/he is active on... by itself that won't give you that much information (well, except maybe that if a SysAdmin is not on a bunch of security announce lists, something is very wrong but expecting them to remember this data without going through their mailbox is pretty unreasonable.) you should figure that out. maybe ask them what usernames they use on technical forms that they'd like to share? (note, as an employer, you have to be careful not to be creepy when you do this. Most of us have a 'professional identity' we don't mind sharing... but you don't want to look like the kind of employer who goes through employee's myspace profiles looking for drunken party pictures.)
    - Poiesis 16y ago
      Wear-hard! I didn't think that one would still be alive and kicking. It's not exactly what most employers would be looking for, I guess. I lost interest in wear-hard when I realized that smartphones pretty much did everything I needed a wearable to do and also got out of my way when I needed them to. But all these mailing lists, they take serious time . For me, they're really the first thing to go.
      - lsc 16y ago
        I was wondering if anyone was going to catch that one. Wear-hard, certainly, won't take up much of your time. It's just about dead these days, but every now and then someone talks about their rig which usually triggers a bunch of responses like yours. I don't think smartphones are quite there yet. Most of the way, though. A bluetooth twiddler would about do it. Lists I can ignore (e.g. everything but the security -announce lists) go in their own folders to be ignored, most of the time. but they are a good substitute for HN, if you want a more technically oriented and less business oriented discussion, and they are essential if you really want to figure out a tough bug or add a new feature, so having a presence on the mailing lists (even if you don't read them every day) is really useful.
- lolname 16y ago
  I've worked with a lot of truly top-notch Unix folks, and VERY few of them have a meaningful mailing list presence.
  - lsc 16y ago
    are you sure? I mean, I know sometimes months or years after I leave a place I recognize an ex-co worker on a mailing list. If they really don't post, then what do they do when they find bugs? fix it and keep it to themselves?
    - lolname 16y ago
      Yes. I'm sure. (I just googled a couple of the most prominent names.) They work around it, or more often they realize that somebody else has found the same bug and just track that. Or they'll feel generous and submit a fix via some bug tracking system other than a mailing list. If you're using that as a proxy for unix-fu, you should know that it's a REALLY shitty proxy in my (roughly 20 years) of experience.
      - lsc 16y ago
        well, the phenomena of using bugzilla and other web based bug tracking systems is a fairly recent one. And certainly if they are posting good stuff, it doesn't really matter if they are posting good stuff on a mailing list or on a bugzilla or what have you. I'm just making a historical observation that the people who have been around a while tend to use mailing lists. but yeah, I do think there is something a little fishy about a SysAdmin who doesn't have any public evidence of collaboration. I mean, sure, they could be really good and just have worked places that don't let you give your changes back, but eh, you can say that about any other metric. You must have added a feature to something at some point. You must have been the first user to find a particular bug at some point. The biggest problem with this metric is that search kind of sucks for mailing lists. I mean, usenet used to be /the place/ for this sort of thing, but usenet is dead, and as far as I can tell, much of the usenet archives that at one point I could access via dejanews are gone (groups.google does not have some of the posts that I know are there.)
- dinkumthinkum 16y ago
  See, I know OS researchers (very published) that spend 100% of their time in the kernel and never bother with LKML. And these people are pretty damn good! I think it's just not the best method to guage.
  - lsc 16y ago
    well, if you are published, that should also show up online. People who are published usually are a higher pay grade than I'm allowed to hire for, so I don't worry about it too much, but choosing people who are published, I think, would actually be a very similar metric (though, much more expensive) to looking at people's patches.
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