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How I use Github might possibly show you my passion and enthusiasm and skill as a programmer. What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolu

How I use Github might possibly show you my passion and enthusiasm and skill as a programmer. What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Too many hiring managers/recruiters/HR people focus only on the first point, as some sort of religion.

rumanator 6y ago
> What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. Is it because he is incompetent and has nothing to show for? Perhaps not, but if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise then just for the sake of avoiding wasting your time with yet another paper tiger... It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews.
- andrewstuart 6y ago
  >> Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. No, you do not have to have a "reason" for not having a public portfolio. Not having a public portfolio doesn't say anything at all about someone's competence. >> if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise Public code is not the only way to assess skills, indeed as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread its actually a pretty bad way to assess skills. If the best tools you have for assessing competence is github then your recruiting process is lacking. >> It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews. I can imagine employers with this attitude lamenting how hard it is to find good people.
johnisgood 6y ago
I do not use GitHub because their political views do not align with mine. And what does politics have to do with programming? I do not know, you have to ask them, they are the ones trying to bring politics into IT. I just self-host Gogs, GitLab, Trac, cgit, etc. They are independent of each other, of course. :) Different teams, different needs. As far as my personal projects go, I just self-host cgit, and I accept "pull requests" through e-mail. It works.
- dijit 6y ago
  Please be mindful of voicing this opinion. It is an opinion I share but disagreeing with the inclusion of politics into tech makes people believe you have taken the opposite stance. There is little nuance permitted in US politics and US politics is the only politics permitted in technology. I blogged about it. It has cost me job opportunities.
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    Thank you! You are right, I should. I will not mention this any more, just this one last time: I honestly just have no clue why politics is so pervasive, and I would like it if people did not read too much into it, and I would like to think that it does not say anything about my political views. :D I tend to not share my political views anywhere, especially not on Twitter. I do not even own a Twitter account! If I express my beliefs, it is under a pseudonym. Sometimes I even argue in favor of something with what I disagree only to learn more.
  - wronghorse 6y ago
    Several of the world's largest tech companies are based out of the US. Should they not care about US politics?
    - dijit 6y ago
      The idea of companies caring about politics is usually followed quite closely by corruption in most cultures. By all means, they can care about politics- but they cant force me to care about their politics and they should not be as reactionary as they are when I take my business elsewhere. I am just a dude who likes computers. I don’t need to shoulder problems from half a world away on behalf of billion-dollar corporations.
      - jjeaff 6y ago
        There is a difference between morality/ethics and politics. I am unaware of GitHub supporting any specific candidate.
djellybeans 6y ago
Last year I was phone screened by a manager in a e-commerce shop from LA while I was living in Chicago. They seemed to be too fixated on my Github contributions. This was not a startup trying to accelerate- it's merely an agency that sees modest growth with a modest volume of clients. Don't know what they though that my involvement in open-source projects would correlate well to e-commerce CMS work (I've worked in e-commerce dev well before opening a Github account). But it's probably some weird "tie breaker" decision given that I am not local to LA.

rumanator 6y ago

> What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. Is it because he is incompetent and has nothing to show for? Perhaps not, but if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise then just for the sake of avoiding wasting your time with yet another paper tiger... It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews.

andrewstuart 6y ago
>> Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. No, you do not have to have a "reason" for not having a public portfolio. Not having a public portfolio doesn't say anything at all about someone's competence. >> if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise Public code is not the only way to assess skills, indeed as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread its actually a pretty bad way to assess skills. If the best tools you have for assessing competence is github then your recruiting process is lacking. >> It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews. I can imagine employers with this attitude lamenting how hard it is to find good people.

johnisgood 6y ago

I do not use GitHub because their political views do not align with mine. And what does politics have to do with programming? I do not know, you have to ask them, they are the ones trying to bring politics into IT. I just self-host Gogs, GitLab, Trac, cgit, etc. They are independent of each other, of course. :) Different teams, different needs. As far as my personal projects go, I just self-host cgit, and I accept "pull requests" through e-mail. It works.

dijit 6y ago
Please be mindful of voicing this opinion. It is an opinion I share but disagreeing with the inclusion of politics into tech makes people believe you have taken the opposite stance. There is little nuance permitted in US politics and US politics is the only politics permitted in technology. I blogged about it. It has cost me job opportunities.
- johnisgood 6y ago
  Thank you! You are right, I should. I will not mention this any more, just this one last time: I honestly just have no clue why politics is so pervasive, and I would like it if people did not read too much into it, and I would like to think that it does not say anything about my political views. :D I tend to not share my political views anywhere, especially not on Twitter. I do not even own a Twitter account! If I express my beliefs, it is under a pseudonym. Sometimes I even argue in favor of something with what I disagree only to learn more.
- wronghorse 6y ago
  Several of the world's largest tech companies are based out of the US. Should they not care about US politics?
  - dijit 6y ago
    The idea of companies caring about politics is usually followed quite closely by corruption in most cultures. By all means, they can care about politics- but they cant force me to care about their politics and they should not be as reactionary as they are when I take my business elsewhere. I am just a dude who likes computers. I don’t need to shoulder problems from half a world away on behalf of billion-dollar corporations.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      There is a difference between morality/ethics and politics. I am unaware of GitHub supporting any specific candidate.

djellybeans 6y ago

Last year I was phone screened by a manager in a e-commerce shop from LA while I was living in Chicago. They seemed to be too fixated on my Github contributions. This was not a startup trying to accelerate- it's merely an agency that sees modest growth with a modest volume of clients. Don't know what they though that my involvement in open-source projects would correlate well to e-commerce CMS work (I've worked in e-commerce dev well before opening a Github account). But it's probably some weird "tie breaker" decision given that I am not local to LA.