3 ms·
Sometimes developers don't have a choice about putting their work online--many large companies actively discourage (or prohibit) their engineers from participat
by amcintyre 15y ago
Sometimes developers don't have a choice about putting their work online--many large companies actively discourage (or prohibit) their engineers from participating in any meaningful way in open source projects.
Want to post your personal hacking online under your real name? Nope, sorry--"everything you do belongs to the company, and we can't take the chance that you might accidentally post some uber-valuable trade secret." So rather than risk losing the job, you just find some other, not-publicly-visible way to spend your time.
Maybe this group of developers isn't viewed as interesting to many employers, and if that's the case my argument isn't worth much.
- davidkatz 15y agoWe know, and that sucks. Let me ask you a question though - developers who can't put their code online, will some of them not engage online otherwise? Say, consume professional content on twitter, post on HN, or answer questions on Stack Overflow? Our goal is to look at any kind of professional activity online, not only code. What do you think?
- amcintyre 15y agoI'm not inclined to do any of those things in a serious way, much less in a way that I'd call professional. I post on HN sporadically and solely for my own amusement, and I don't know that any employers would find my history here relevant in any way. I don't really get into the social media aspect of development even when I'm allowed to contribute to open projects, so I doubt I'd be very visible (or very attractive if I were) via any social media outlets. Whether I'm the norm or not, I don't know. Edited to add: By the way, I do appreciate that somebody's out there trying to help developers be more easily visible for doing such things, so don't take my comments the wrong way. :)
- davidkatz 15y agoThanks for the edit :)