9 ms·

Look, I work on a lot of proprietary stuff as well, but even if Github didn't exist, we'd both be subject to the same "unfairness." Here's a job interview, circ

Look, I work on a lot of proprietary stuff as well, but even if Github didn't exist, we'd both be subject to the same "unfairness." Here's a job interview, circa 1981: Candidate 1: "I brought this fanfold printout of the source code for _____ I wrote with me, have a look. Candidate 2: "I can't show you any of the code, but trust me, it's good." Github merely drags that conversation forward from 1981 up to 2011. When you and I choose to write code that is locked away in somebody else's vault, we ought to charge extra to compensate for the fact that we might as well have been surfing Oahu.

wildjim 16y ago
Isn't this part of the reason for references, but more importantly: probation period ?
- daleharvey 16y ago
  references are useless, companies are very wary to give bad references due to the chance of a lawsuit, and a probation period is a massive cost to the company
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    > a probation period is a massive cost to the company Perhaps, but it's a lot less than the cost of not having a probationary period and winding up stuck with a poor member of staff indefinitely because you couldn't do the impossible and spot every problem candidate during a momentary interview.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    I've heard this for years, but have never been able to find out what references someone gave for me in an employment situation. Is it common?
WalterBright 16y ago
That's funny, in 1982 that's exactly what I did for a job interview - I brought in a listing of source code to show what I could do. I found out later that that's why I was offered the job. The argument that this isn't fair to many programmers has also been going on at least for the last 30 years. Fair or not, it helps a lot in convincing an employer you're worth hiring.
orijing 16y ago
> When you and I choose to write code that is locked away in somebody else's vault, we ought to charge extra to compensate for the fact that we might as well have been surfing Oahu. I like that idea. Part of the value from working on open source projects for companies is the public nature of your contributions: It's easy for you to take your commits to Chromium and show it to Facebook or Apple when looking for a job there. Companies may not like that idea, however.

wildjim 16y ago

Isn't this part of the reason for references, but more importantly: probation period ?

daleharvey 16y ago
references are useless, companies are very wary to give bad references due to the chance of a lawsuit, and a probation period is a massive cost to the company
- Silhouette 16y ago
  > a probation period is a massive cost to the company Perhaps, but it's a lot less than the cost of not having a probationary period and winding up stuck with a poor member of staff indefinitely because you couldn't do the impossible and spot every problem candidate during a momentary interview.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  I've heard this for years, but have never been able to find out what references someone gave for me in an employment situation. Is it common?

WalterBright 16y ago

That's funny, in 1982 that's exactly what I did for a job interview - I brought in a listing of source code to show what I could do. I found out later that that's why I was offered the job. The argument that this isn't fair to many programmers has also been going on at least for the last 30 years. Fair or not, it helps a lot in convincing an employer you're worth hiring.

orijing 16y ago

> When you and I choose to write code that is locked away in somebody else's vault, we ought to charge extra to compensate for the fact that we might as well have been surfing Oahu. I like that idea. Part of the value from working on open source projects for companies is the public nature of your contributions: It's easy for you to take your commits to Chromium and show it to Facebook or Apple when looking for a job there. Companies may not like that idea, however.