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If you see that something did some programming for free, is it because they love programming? Or they love the increased chances of getting a job/money? What d

If you see that something did some programming for free, is it because they love programming? Or they love the increased chances of getting a job/money? What do you think the ratio is? The recent Hacktoberfest/ pull-request/ T-shirt fiasco (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 among many) shows that signal is definitely gameable.

sokoloff 6y ago
You might be worrying that I can't tell the difference between a gamed/BS pull request and a genuine side project. If someone "games the system" well enough that they can cogently explain something interesting about their side project, do I really need to know if they grudgingly learned it because of money concerns or out of a love of solving puzzles with computers? By the time you can explain your side work and have some level of understanding/explanation that you can share, that's strongly positively correlated to me. If you happen to be bad at programming and grudgingly trudged through it, that might show up once you're employed, in which case it was a false-positive. But it's at least a somewhat expensive false-positive for you to generate.
- eesmith 6y ago
  Which sounds like your signal is "cogently explain something interesting about their side project" and not simply "did something worthwhile for free".
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Sure. I suppose that if you go deep enough, my signal is "will write good code here", which is suggested by "can write good code", which is suggested by "has written good code" and "wishes to write good code", which is suggested by..."did a side project" or "doesn't only write code when someone is standing there to pay them for it" or <whatever else> Everything in an interview process is an approximation and guess.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      I agree that it makes business sense to shift risk to the potential employee. My observation is that this biases the employment pool toward those who have extra money and time to work for no income. Those who have to work two jobs, or spend their free time taking care of chronically ill family, or are otherwise prevented from being able to work for free, have less of a chance, even if they are otherwise well-qualified. I have no suggestions for what to change, only my original comment that "passion" seems altogether too often a code phrase for something other than "loves to program."

sokoloff 6y ago

You might be worrying that I can't tell the difference between a gamed/BS pull request and a genuine side project. If someone "games the system" well enough that they can cogently explain something interesting about their side project, do I really need to know if they grudgingly learned it because of money concerns or out of a love of solving puzzles with computers? By the time you can explain your side work and have some level of understanding/explanation that you can share, that's strongly positively correlated to me. If you happen to be bad at programming and grudgingly trudged through it, that might show up once you're employed, in which case it was a false-positive. But it's at least a somewhat expensive false-positive for you to generate.

eesmith 6y ago
Which sounds like your signal is "cogently explain something interesting about their side project" and not simply "did something worthwhile for free".
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Sure. I suppose that if you go deep enough, my signal is "will write good code here", which is suggested by "can write good code", which is suggested by "has written good code" and "wishes to write good code", which is suggested by..."did a side project" or "doesn't only write code when someone is standing there to pay them for it" or <whatever else> Everything in an interview process is an approximation and guess.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    I agree that it makes business sense to shift risk to the potential employee. My observation is that this biases the employment pool toward those who have extra money and time to work for no income. Those who have to work two jobs, or spend their free time taking care of chronically ill family, or are otherwise prevented from being able to work for free, have less of a chance, even if they are otherwise well-qualified. I have no suggestions for what to change, only my original comment that "passion" seems altogether too often a code phrase for something other than "loves to program."