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Regarding different VCSs, the point is that code is the new resume and Github happens to be the most popular place to find it. Links to bitbucket, sourceforge,

by swanson 15y ago

Regarding different VCSs, the point is that code is the new resume and Github happens to be the most popular place to find it. Links to bitbucket, sourceforge, google code, etc etc are all equally valuable and would have the same impact. Personal time commitments are understandable, but I feel like they are just an excuse in 90% of the cases. As 37signals puts it, "No time is no excuse". If you are serious about improving your abilities and buy into the craftmanship model at all, you can surely find a few hours of month to work on something, anything. Trade an hour of TV watching for an hour of writing your own blog engine or a Todo list app. Or write something to improve some small bit of your life (a program that emails you once a month to remind you to take your SO out for a nice dinner), put that on github. Don't make it out like you have to write the next Rails or jQuery to put code online. The rest of your issues are largely related to workplace culture. If you work at a company that uses any open source code (and I know there are some cases that don't due to federal validation and redtape etc etc), you have probably found a bug at some point. Put in an issue on github - send a pull request if you feel ambitious or if you had to monkeypatch the code for your project anyways. I have a feeling that people that work for closed/IP-hungry companies will go to the same kind of company when they change jobs. And that is fine, for some people software is just a job; but those are not the kind of people that read HN or software blogs anyways. I know you are probably playing devil's advocate here, but every time someone posts about why developers should have side projects or github accounts, these points all get brought up and it bugs me.

econgeeker 15y ago
You're expressing a prejudice here and advocating discrimination based on it. It seems ideological. You're saying "Don't hire people if they don't contribute to open source projects." You assume they are watching TV, rather than, say, working on an iOS game that they are selling. Resumes are for deciding who you're going to interview. If github is the new resume, then you're not going to know about the side projects.
- swanson 15y ago
  I don't want to turn this into a game of forum post logical proofs. I don't advocate "don't hire if no OSS". I work with smart people that get stuff done and don't have a Github account. That's fine, it's a personal choice how you use your time. What rubs me the wrong way is when people say "It's unfair to look at Github as the new resume because I don't have enough time to do open source". Like I said originally, I'm sure someone is going to come along and post about how every hour of their day is being used for meaningful activities, but for the majority of people I don't think that's true.
  - econgeeker 15y ago
    People are very different. It takes all kinds. The kind of hacker you are, is not the only kind of hacker there is. There can be very bright, excellent engineers, who spend their entire off-duty time watching TV. They don't have a duty to contribute to open source software and choosing not to does not tell you anything about their skills as an engineer. I remember once a new coworker telling me -- on his first day, no less- that he didn't have a computer at home. He was proud of this. He was a new CS graduate, and for him, computers were not an interest, at all. It was just a job. I asked him what he was into, and it was sports, naturally. I didn't like that, it rubbed me the wrong way. I probably would have given him the thumbs down if I'd been in the hiring loop then. Turned out he was a good engineer. Better than that, the sport he was into was one I got into as well and we spent a fair bit of time over the years in our off hours far away from any computers.
    - Jacquass12321 15y ago
      I guess repeating exactly what he said while managing to sound both disagreeable and condescending is a change from your outright misrepresenting and troll like posts earlier in this thread I'm not sure it's a change for the better.
    - asreal 15y ago
      Let me guess - Brazilian Jujitsu.
Locke1689 15y ago
In many cases contributing to open source software can present legal issues with your employer.
alain94040 15y ago
Sorry but that doesn't make any sense (and I was a hiring manager for many years). When I want to hire an experienced developer, what matters is the experience they got at their previous employers, the large codebase they worked on there. None of that stuff will be on Github, that's just a fact of life.
- swanson 15y ago
  Do you hire a developer based on their resume alone? Probably not. The article is saying that Github is the new resume, not that you should only hire people based on what they do on Github. I have no problem if you want me to demonstrate experience from a previous job, but it's not like that is some magic bullet to finding a good hire either. I could easily embellish my experience and you have no way to tell. But experience supported by publicly available code should give you an indication of whether or not I can actually program. I am happy to discuss it further if there is some part in particular that you disagree with.
  - cosgroveb 15y ago
    You wouldn't hire someone based on their resume alone but a resume is usually required. What you're saying is Github is now a requirement which is absurd. Also this would mean I have to use a particular tool for development (maybe I should be required to only use gcc for my C projects too). A particular tool on a particular site. I like Mercurial. The projects I like to contribute might use Google code. Guess I am going to have a hard time finding a job now.
    - swanson 15y ago
      I think you are confusing your disagreement with the original article (which I did not write) and my comment. My comment [mainly] addresses the point about that cletus brought up about people that don't have enough time to do open source or side projects. I did not say anywhere in this thread that Github was a requirement and I don't believe that to be the case. I also assume you read my parent comment in which I addressed the fact that Mercurial-based repository sites and Google Code both achieve the same goal.
anxrn 15y ago
It bugs you because you don't get get it, freely stereotype and readily tell people how to spend their free time. I work for a bigco that doesn't contribute to open source. I used to work for a bigco that was one of the biggest contributors to open source. I spend spare time working on an reasonably sized open source project, of which I was one of the founders, hosted on, yes, github. I have interesting (to me, atleast) side projects, mostly hardhacks, which I don't necessarily build to share. I do it for fun. Obviously, I read HN. I never require open source experience when I hire, because my experience in both the 'closed' and 'open' worlds tells me that great scientists and engineers exist in both worlds and using a VCS account as a filter is crude. This is just another facet.
- swanson 15y ago
  I agree with you that it is another facet. The point I was trying to make is that there is a pretty low barrier to entry to get yourself into that facet. An attitude I see online a lot is that "If I don't do it, it's not valuable" - though this goes hand-in-hand with "I do it, if you don't you are wrong". I am biased because I do have a github account and work on side projects for fun, but I think it is worthwhile to point out that if time is what you think your limiting factor is (which was the point that cletus made that I was directly addressing), then maybe you aren't really looking hard enough into how you are using your time.
  - alain94040 15y ago
    You have made similar statements about 4 times in this thread ("you aren't really looking hard enough into how you are using your time.", "trade an hour of TV watching for an hour of writing your own blog engine or a Todo list app") already and you basically alienated about 90% of good developers, and you still don't seem to get why your statement is insulting. Others told you, so try to understand their viewpoint: you are projecting your own prejudices about time and open source. Maybe, if you look at the cold, hard numbers, you may agree that 90% of smart programmers don't have a github account. True or false? If true, then your claims need to be revisited.

by swanson 15y ago

econgeeker 15y ago

You're expressing a prejudice here and advocating discrimination based on it. It seems ideological. You're saying "Don't hire people if they don't contribute to open source projects." You assume they are watching TV, rather than, say, working on an iOS game that they are selling. Resumes are for deciding who you're going to interview. If github is the new resume, then you're not going to know about the side projects.

swanson 15y ago
I don't want to turn this into a game of forum post logical proofs. I don't advocate "don't hire if no OSS". I work with smart people that get stuff done and don't have a Github account. That's fine, it's a personal choice how you use your time. What rubs me the wrong way is when people say "It's unfair to look at Github as the new resume because I don't have enough time to do open source". Like I said originally, I'm sure someone is going to come along and post about how every hour of their day is being used for meaningful activities, but for the majority of people I don't think that's true.
- econgeeker 15y ago
  People are very different. It takes all kinds. The kind of hacker you are, is not the only kind of hacker there is. There can be very bright, excellent engineers, who spend their entire off-duty time watching TV. They don't have a duty to contribute to open source software and choosing not to does not tell you anything about their skills as an engineer. I remember once a new coworker telling me -- on his first day, no less- that he didn't have a computer at home. He was proud of this. He was a new CS graduate, and for him, computers were not an interest, at all. It was just a job. I asked him what he was into, and it was sports, naturally. I didn't like that, it rubbed me the wrong way. I probably would have given him the thumbs down if I'd been in the hiring loop then. Turned out he was a good engineer. Better than that, the sport he was into was one I got into as well and we spent a fair bit of time over the years in our off hours far away from any computers.
  - Jacquass12321 15y ago
    I guess repeating exactly what he said while managing to sound both disagreeable and condescending is a change from your outright misrepresenting and troll like posts earlier in this thread I'm not sure it's a change for the better.
  - asreal 15y ago
    Let me guess - Brazilian Jujitsu.

Locke1689 15y ago

In many cases contributing to open source software can present legal issues with your employer.

alain94040 15y ago

Sorry but that doesn't make any sense (and I was a hiring manager for many years). When I want to hire an experienced developer, what matters is the experience they got at their previous employers, the large codebase they worked on there. None of that stuff will be on Github, that's just a fact of life.

swanson 15y ago
Do you hire a developer based on their resume alone? Probably not. The article is saying that Github is the new resume, not that you should only hire people based on what they do on Github. I have no problem if you want me to demonstrate experience from a previous job, but it's not like that is some magic bullet to finding a good hire either. I could easily embellish my experience and you have no way to tell. But experience supported by publicly available code should give you an indication of whether or not I can actually program. I am happy to discuss it further if there is some part in particular that you disagree with.
- cosgroveb 15y ago
  You wouldn't hire someone based on their resume alone but a resume is usually required. What you're saying is Github is now a requirement which is absurd. Also this would mean I have to use a particular tool for development (maybe I should be required to only use gcc for my C projects too). A particular tool on a particular site. I like Mercurial. The projects I like to contribute might use Google code. Guess I am going to have a hard time finding a job now.
  - swanson 15y ago
    I think you are confusing your disagreement with the original article (which I did not write) and my comment. My comment [mainly] addresses the point about that cletus brought up about people that don't have enough time to do open source or side projects. I did not say anywhere in this thread that Github was a requirement and I don't believe that to be the case. I also assume you read my parent comment in which I addressed the fact that Mercurial-based repository sites and Google Code both achieve the same goal.

anxrn 15y ago

It bugs you because you don't get get it, freely stereotype and readily tell people how to spend their free time. I work for a bigco that doesn't contribute to open source. I used to work for a bigco that was one of the biggest contributors to open source. I spend spare time working on an reasonably sized open source project, of which I was one of the founders, hosted on, yes, github. I have interesting (to me, atleast) side projects, mostly hardhacks, which I don't necessarily build to share. I do it for fun. Obviously, I read HN. I never require open source experience when I hire, because my experience in both the 'closed' and 'open' worlds tells me that great scientists and engineers exist in both worlds and using a VCS account as a filter is crude. This is just another facet.

swanson 15y ago
I agree with you that it is another facet. The point I was trying to make is that there is a pretty low barrier to entry to get yourself into that facet. An attitude I see online a lot is that "If I don't do it, it's not valuable" - though this goes hand-in-hand with "I do it, if you don't you are wrong". I am biased because I do have a github account and work on side projects for fun, but I think it is worthwhile to point out that if time is what you think your limiting factor is (which was the point that cletus made that I was directly addressing), then maybe you aren't really looking hard enough into how you are using your time.
- alain94040 15y ago
  You have made similar statements about 4 times in this thread ("you aren't really looking hard enough into how you are using your time.", "trade an hour of TV watching for an hour of writing your own blog engine or a Todo list app") already and you basically alienated about 90% of good developers, and you still don't seem to get why your statement is insulting. Others told you, so try to understand their viewpoint: you are projecting your own prejudices about time and open source. Maybe, if you look at the cold, hard numbers, you may agree that 90% of smart programmers don't have a github account. True or false? If true, then your claims need to be revisited.