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As far as I can tell, this equates 'best programmers' with people who run repositories for popular projects. I suppose if you think Justin Bieber and various t

As far as I can tell, this equates 'best programmers' with people who run repositories for popular projects. I suppose if you think Justin Bieber and various top of the charts pop stars are the best musicians it makes sense. I think that good programmers can be involved in popular projects but being involved in a popular project on github shouldn't be the defining characteristic of a 'good programmer'.

heyrhett 15y ago
I think that it depends on what you're hiring for. This is analogous to Gladwell's, "there is no perfect pepsi, only perfect pepsis" Ideally, githire should let one select from a few different hiring algorithms, which rank people differently.
- rhizome 15y ago
  Malcolm Gladwell is not a management consultant.
  - heyrhett 15y ago
    All I know is that if I put in Austin, Tx, I see a few people that I know in the top 10 to be really good software developers. However, these are the types of people who generally start their own projects, and attract other good developers to a project. Their salaries are also going to be quite a bit higher than the average developer as well. So, it seems to me that project popularity is at least some indicator that a person is competent as a software developer, but I can think of a lot of jobs that wouldn't require someone to be in the top 10. I think that it would be great to be able to be able to search by code quality, test coverage, etc., but I don't think that we have the AI metrics to do that yet, and unfortunately, a real human has to look at someone's code to decide if it's any good. However, this reminds me of software that tries to detect what "reading level" a person is writing at. For example, google lets you search by "reading level". It would be an interesting project for someone to apply the same principles to software.
6ren 15y ago
It's a threshold filter. If you can create and maintain a project that's actually useful to people, you are definitely not a bozo. (NB: if you haven't done so, it doesn't mean you're a bozo; the implication only goes one way). It's a better filter than "attended a super-elite university".

heyrhett 15y ago

I think that it depends on what you're hiring for. This is analogous to Gladwell's, "there is no perfect pepsi, only perfect pepsis" Ideally, githire should let one select from a few different hiring algorithms, which rank people differently.

rhizome 15y ago
Malcolm Gladwell is not a management consultant.
- heyrhett 15y ago
  All I know is that if I put in Austin, Tx, I see a few people that I know in the top 10 to be really good software developers. However, these are the types of people who generally start their own projects, and attract other good developers to a project. Their salaries are also going to be quite a bit higher than the average developer as well. So, it seems to me that project popularity is at least some indicator that a person is competent as a software developer, but I can think of a lot of jobs that wouldn't require someone to be in the top 10. I think that it would be great to be able to be able to search by code quality, test coverage, etc., but I don't think that we have the AI metrics to do that yet, and unfortunately, a real human has to look at someone's code to decide if it's any good. However, this reminds me of software that tries to detect what "reading level" a person is writing at. For example, google lets you search by "reading level". It would be an interesting project for someone to apply the same principles to software.

6ren 15y ago

It's a threshold filter. If you can create and maintain a project that's actually useful to people, you are definitely not a bozo. (NB: if you haven't done so, it doesn't mean you're a bozo; the implication only goes one way). It's a better filter than "attended a super-elite university".