4 ms·

Interesting. I find git blame sufficient to assess engineering talent on a shared code base. Sometimes I read through a file and there's clarity and other times

Interesting. I find git blame sufficient to assess engineering talent on a shared code base. Sometimes I read through a file and there's clarity and other times it's spaghetti. The ones who write with clarity are the ones I want my desk next to. Sometimes they are not even the ones that management is promoting.

pmoriarty 4y ago
> Sometimes they are not even the ones that management is promoting. According to The Gervais Principle[1]: "The Peter Principle states that all people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It is based on the assumption that future promotions are based on past performance. The Peter Principle is wrong for the simple reason that executives aren’t that stupid, and because there isn’t that much room in an upward-narrowing pyramid. They know what it takes for a promotion candidate to perform at the to level. So if they are promoting people beyond their competence anyway, under conditions of opportunity scarcity, there must be a good reason. "Scott Adams, seeing a different flaw in the Peter Principle, proposed the Dilbert Principle: that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to middle management to limit the damage they can do. This again is untrue. The Gervais principle predicts the exact opposite: that the most competent ones will be promoted to middle management. Michael Scott was a star salesman before he become a Clueless middle manager. The least competent employees (but not all of them -- only certain enlightened incompetents) will be promoted not to middle management, but fast-tracked through to senior management. To the Sociopath level. "And in case you are wondering, the unenlightened under-performers get fired." [1] - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
scarface74 4y ago
Really? In every large tech company whose leveling guidelines I’ve seen (including my own), “being able to code well” only separates junior developers from mid level developers. After that it’s about “scope” and “impact”. Looking at the git blame tells you nothing about the skillset it takes to be successful at any large tech company at a senior level.
- tppiotrowski 4y ago
  > git blame tells you nothing about the skillset it takes to be successful at any large tech company at a senior level 100%. I don't care who has "scope" or "impact" or is "senior". I want to sit next to the developer I can ask about the pro/cons of any web development framework, that can help me analyze a heap dump, or explain why some transitive dependency is getting pulled in at compile time. These are the ones I'm successful finding with git blame. They're the ones that can help me get stuff done.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    When the big wigs are calling people into the room to lead technical discussions with their largest customers or potential customers, they aren’t going to go through your repos and see who had the best code.
  - spoils19 4y ago
    Precisely. I once had a really good architect who could design resilient, scalable systems that had a large positive impact to the company. Want to know what the problem was? He had no git commits for the last 6 months, so when I ran git blame over our repositories, I couldn't judge how he could analyze a heap dump.

pmoriarty 4y ago

> Sometimes they are not even the ones that management is promoting. According to The Gervais Principle[1]: "The Peter Principle states that all people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It is based on the assumption that future promotions are based on past performance. The Peter Principle is wrong for the simple reason that executives aren’t that stupid, and because there isn’t that much room in an upward-narrowing pyramid. They know what it takes for a promotion candidate to perform at the to level. So if they are promoting people beyond their competence anyway, under conditions of opportunity scarcity, there must be a good reason. "Scott Adams, seeing a different flaw in the Peter Principle, proposed the Dilbert Principle: that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to middle management to limit the damage they can do. This again is untrue. The Gervais principle predicts the exact opposite: that the most competent ones will be promoted to middle management. Michael Scott was a star salesman before he become a Clueless middle manager. The least competent employees (but not all of them -- only certain enlightened incompetents) will be promoted not to middle management, but fast-tracked through to senior management. To the Sociopath level. "And in case you are wondering, the unenlightened under-performers get fired." [1] - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

scarface74 4y ago

Really? In every large tech company whose leveling guidelines I’ve seen (including my own), “being able to code well” only separates junior developers from mid level developers. After that it’s about “scope” and “impact”. Looking at the git blame tells you nothing about the skillset it takes to be successful at any large tech company at a senior level.

tppiotrowski 4y ago
> git blame tells you nothing about the skillset it takes to be successful at any large tech company at a senior level 100%. I don't care who has "scope" or "impact" or is "senior". I want to sit next to the developer I can ask about the pro/cons of any web development framework, that can help me analyze a heap dump, or explain why some transitive dependency is getting pulled in at compile time. These are the ones I'm successful finding with git blame. They're the ones that can help me get stuff done.
- scarface74 4y ago
  When the big wigs are calling people into the room to lead technical discussions with their largest customers or potential customers, they aren’t going to go through your repos and see who had the best code.
- spoils19 4y ago
  Precisely. I once had a really good architect who could design resilient, scalable systems that had a large positive impact to the company. Want to know what the problem was? He had no git commits for the last 6 months, so when I ran git blame over our repositories, I couldn't judge how he could analyze a heap dump.