6 ms·

He looks slow and prone to repetitive patterns. Overall, I wouldn't hire. tl;dr: He's not using Emacs

by lbj 15y ago

jemeshsu 15y ago
Hire him? You do realize he owns a multi-million dollars gaming company right?
- kami8845 15y ago
  Maybe lbj owns a multi-billion dollars gaming company
  - munchor 15y ago
    I laughed out loud so hard.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
xal 15y ago
you are joking - or at least I'm reading your comment like you are based on your second line. However, it's worth noting that if you'd have a job that Notch is willing to take and you are not hiring him into that role then it's practically a factual statement that your hiring process is broken. Admittedly that's a contrived scenario as he made tens of millions from Minecraft and founded a gaming company who's chief reason to exist is to finish the games that Notch starts.
- Ralith 15y ago
  > if you'd have a job that Notch is willing to take and you are not hiring him into that role then it's practically a factual statement that your hiring process is broken Why do you say that? Do you think Notch's success is a result of him being an exceptionally competent programmer?
  - coopdog 15y ago
    There's no point in code that doesn't do anything for anyone Notch has proven he's able to program fun games, and his programming styles is pretty well tailored to that Who's to say if the goal changed he wouldn't change his style too
  - xal 15y ago
    Creativity, resourcefulness and grit are the three main virtues of the best programmers in the world. He may be a 10/10 on all three which is just about unheard of.
- mdonahoe 15y ago
  More seriously, I wonder if people who have run their own companies in past make for bad employees.
  - xal 15y ago
    no they make the best. That's why we are doing talent acquisitions regularly. These employees could be temporary (1-3 years based on earnout) but can do incredible things in that time if you let them.
- AndyKelley 15y ago
  It's not a joke. Notch is good at thinking of fun game ideas and implementing them, but he's not a very skilled software developer. I'd never hire him. He belongs right where he is, as an indie game developer - kickstarting a fun game, alone, from scratch, proving that it is popular and that people love it, and then letting more skillful programmers take over developing it and fixing all the bugs that he created.
  - scotty79 15y ago
    Do you know any more skillful programers who do livecasts?
    - bonch 15y ago
      Are you implying that doing a livecast makes you a skillfull programmer? Minecraft is riddled with shockingly bad code.
  - thoradam 15y ago
    Have you worked with him or do you know him? I'd have to guess that he is in fact a very skilled software developer. Minecraft is a fairly complex project, as is emulating a 16-bit CPU within the constraints of a game environment. And I'm curious, what wouldn't you hire him for?
    - AndyKelley 15y ago
      I created mineflayer[0] - software which implements the minecraft client/server protocol and provides an API so that you can create minecraft bots in javascript. So I followed minecraft development for a while, decompiled and analyzed the code, had to deal with the shitty protocol, and observed the way bugs are introduced and solved. I've seen his posts about how git is too hard to learn[1] so he's going to stick with svn. I've seen him post that "we've started to bring in bug fixing into the development method"[2], and then the very next release is a "bug fix" release which causes more new bugs than it solves.[3] I wouldn't hire him for a software development job that required any level of maintenance. He's good at creating original fun concepts but not at making it nice for people to read, modify, or maintain his code. Also, I would argue that emulating a 16-bit CPU within the constraints of a game environment is easy and straightforward. For one, it's ridiculously simple to do test driven development without any overhead. And second, have you seen all the emulators that have cropped up after the specs were posted? There is already an emulator for almost every popular programming language. [0]: https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer [1]: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2623477410/strategy-meeting-day-results http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2623477410/strategy-meeting-day... [2]: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4423138657/11-11-11 http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4423138657/11-11-11 [3]: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history (might have to view history)
- bonch 15y ago
  Just so you know, Minecraft is pretty infamous for being technically unsound. Making millions isn't a valid qualifier, in my eyes--it sounds an awful lot like "More Money Equals Better Than" (search it on YouTube).
eta_carinae 15y ago
I use emacs every day for various things but I would never hire a Java programmer who doesn't use an IDE.

He looks slow and prone to repetitive patterns. Overall, I wouldn't hire. tl;dr: He's not using Emacs

by lbj 15y ago

He looks slow and prone to repetitive patterns. Overall, I wouldn't hire. tl;dr: He's not using Emacs

jemeshsu 15y ago

Hire him? You do realize he owns a multi-million dollars gaming company right?

kami8845 15y ago
Maybe lbj owns a multi-billion dollars gaming company
- munchor 15y ago
  I laughed out loud so hard.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

xal 15y ago

you are joking - or at least I'm reading your comment like you are based on your second line. However, it's worth noting that if you'd have a job that Notch is willing to take and you are not hiring him into that role then it's practically a factual statement that your hiring process is broken. Admittedly that's a contrived scenario as he made tens of millions from Minecraft and founded a gaming company who's chief reason to exist is to finish the games that Notch starts.

Ralith 15y ago
> if you'd have a job that Notch is willing to take and you are not hiring him into that role then it's practically a factual statement that your hiring process is broken Why do you say that? Do you think Notch's success is a result of him being an exceptionally competent programmer?
- coopdog 15y ago
  There's no point in code that doesn't do anything for anyone Notch has proven he's able to program fun games, and his programming styles is pretty well tailored to that Who's to say if the goal changed he wouldn't change his style too
- xal 15y ago
  Creativity, resourcefulness and grit are the three main virtues of the best programmers in the world. He may be a 10/10 on all three which is just about unheard of.
mdonahoe 15y ago
More seriously, I wonder if people who have run their own companies in past make for bad employees.
- xal 15y ago
  no they make the best. That's why we are doing talent acquisitions regularly. These employees could be temporary (1-3 years based on earnout) but can do incredible things in that time if you let them.
AndyKelley 15y ago
It's not a joke. Notch is good at thinking of fun game ideas and implementing them, but he's not a very skilled software developer. I'd never hire him. He belongs right where he is, as an indie game developer - kickstarting a fun game, alone, from scratch, proving that it is popular and that people love it, and then letting more skillful programmers take over developing it and fixing all the bugs that he created.
- scotty79 15y ago
  Do you know any more skillful programers who do livecasts?
  - bonch 15y ago
    Are you implying that doing a livecast makes you a skillfull programmer? Minecraft is riddled with shockingly bad code.
- thoradam 15y ago
  Have you worked with him or do you know him? I'd have to guess that he is in fact a very skilled software developer. Minecraft is a fairly complex project, as is emulating a 16-bit CPU within the constraints of a game environment. And I'm curious, what wouldn't you hire him for?
  - AndyKelley 15y ago
    I created mineflayer[0] - software which implements the minecraft client/server protocol and provides an API so that you can create minecraft bots in javascript. So I followed minecraft development for a while, decompiled and analyzed the code, had to deal with the shitty protocol, and observed the way bugs are introduced and solved. I've seen his posts about how git is too hard to learn[1] so he's going to stick with svn. I've seen him post that "we've started to bring in bug fixing into the development method"[2], and then the very next release is a "bug fix" release which causes more new bugs than it solves.[3] I wouldn't hire him for a software development job that required any level of maintenance. He's good at creating original fun concepts but not at making it nice for people to read, modify, or maintain his code. Also, I would argue that emulating a 16-bit CPU within the constraints of a game environment is easy and straightforward. For one, it's ridiculously simple to do test driven development without any overhead. And second, have you seen all the emulators that have cropped up after the specs were posted? There is already an emulator for almost every popular programming language. [0]: https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer [1]: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2623477410/strategy-meeting-day-results http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2623477410/strategy-meeting-day... [2]: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4423138657/11-11-11 http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4423138657/11-11-11 [3]: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history (might have to view history)
bonch 15y ago
Just so you know, Minecraft is pretty infamous for being technically unsound. Making millions isn't a valid qualifier, in my eyes--it sounds an awful lot like "More Money Equals Better Than" (search it on YouTube).

eta_carinae 15y ago

I use emacs every day for various things but I would never hire a Java programmer who doesn't use an IDE.