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OP here. Yours appears to be the only response which acknowledges some kind of subtlety in the question. It doesn't ask whether the interviewer is familiar with

OP here. Yours appears to be the only response which acknowledges some kind of subtlety in the question. It doesn't ask whether the interviewer is familiar with one specific blog post Joel wrote, or whether they know who founded Stack Overflow, or whether they agree with any of his ideas. It's that they never heard of Joel at all, as in, never heard the name and never came across any of his writing. You contrast Spolsky against Knuth, that's the subtlety part. There has to be someone prominent enough, that if a software engineer said they'd never heard of that person, you'd scratch your head and wonder what's up. Is Knuth sufficiently prominent? Dennis Ritchie? Sergey Brin? Linus Torvalds? Bill Gates?

brudgers 3y ago
Spolsky is not sufficiently prominent even though Stackoverflow is. Same with Brin and google.
catlover76 3y ago
> Yours appears to be the only response which acknowledges some kind of subtlety in the question. There is no "nuance" in your question. Your question was pretty black and white; in your own words, the question is whether "they []ever heard of Joel at all, as in, never heard the name and never came across any of his writing."
- listenallyall 3y ago
  Yes, the stated question is about one specific individual. But unlike most of the answers posted so far, "RcouF1uZ4gsC"'s answer acknowledges that there are people for whom, yes, it might be a red flag. As opposed to your answer above, which states "strange enough to think that something like this matters," implying there is absolutely nobody that might raise a concern. As I mentioned, if the interviewer never heard of Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates, would you really say "it doesn't matter?" If yes, then I kind of wonder about your judgment a little bit. If no, then the question could be re-worded as, "Is Joel Spolsky sufficiently famous or influential among professional software engineers that you'd hesitate before working for someone who had never heard of him," which is a more nuanced question, as it asks the respondent to place him along some spectrum and to determine where the cutoff point is.

brudgers 3y ago

Spolsky is not sufficiently prominent even though Stackoverflow is. Same with Brin and google.

catlover76 3y ago

> Yours appears to be the only response which acknowledges some kind of subtlety in the question. There is no "nuance" in your question. Your question was pretty black and white; in your own words, the question is whether "they []ever heard of Joel at all, as in, never heard the name and never came across any of his writing."

listenallyall 3y ago
Yes, the stated question is about one specific individual. But unlike most of the answers posted so far, "RcouF1uZ4gsC"'s answer acknowledges that there are people for whom, yes, it might be a red flag. As opposed to your answer above, which states "strange enough to think that something like this matters," implying there is absolutely nobody that might raise a concern. As I mentioned, if the interviewer never heard of Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates, would you really say "it doesn't matter?" If yes, then I kind of wonder about your judgment a little bit. If no, then the question could be re-worded as, "Is Joel Spolsky sufficiently famous or influential among professional software engineers that you'd hesitate before working for someone who had never heard of him," which is a more nuanced question, as it asks the respondent to place him along some spectrum and to determine where the cutoff point is.