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At this one startup I was at, I asked one of the fresh grad hires who had a really neat looking terminal what his Oh My Zsh plugins did. He couldn't name more t

At this one startup I was at, I asked one of the fresh grad hires who had a really neat looking terminal what his Oh My Zsh plugins did. He couldn't name more than two and didn't really know them. I asked him what a process' exit status was and somehow he didn't know it. All of the other fresh grad hires tried to use Ubuntu systems with a Windows XP mindset. Having a central bank really is a great evil.

nitinreddy88 2y ago
Thats dumb IMO to discriminate against OS. Very large number of startups do use Mac, do you offer same mentality to them?
- commercialnix 2y ago
  The fresh grads in question came from reputable UC schools. Given the degrees they were (or almost were) holding, and where they came from, they are expected to at least give a shit about Unix-like systems, if not actually have a clue about them. We are a business, not a charity daycare, we do have to actually *judge* employees we hire on their merits. > number of startups do use Mac Modern day macOS is "fine" for the people who will be doing everything they do in Google Chrome. The organizations I tend to frequent are of very high talent density, hence a software developer who forthcomingly prefers macOS and is clueless about *software* (ie operating systems) in a fundamental way is looked down on (and rightly so) by the higher echelon of talent.
pxc 2y ago
> At this one startup I was at, I asked one of the fresh grad hires who had a really neat looking terminal what his Oh My Zsh plugins did. He couldn't name more than two and didn't really know them. I asked him what a process' exit status was and somehow he didn't know it. > All of the other fresh grad hires tried to use Ubuntu systems with a Windows XP mindset. I've written about this on HN before, but the fact is that for many, having a pleasant experience on the terminal is a prerequisite for them taking the time to actually learn the basics. The the terminal emulator isn't a pleasant, cozy place to work in even for newbies, people won't stick around to learn fundamentals like exit statuses or job control. By the same token, there are a lot of people with little previous command-line experience who respond very well to some friendlier defaults in their shell, and become much more interested in further customizing their experience and learning about the Unix environment.
- commercialnix 2y ago
  The competency crisis is very real.

nitinreddy88 2y ago

Thats dumb IMO to discriminate against OS. Very large number of startups do use Mac, do you offer same mentality to them?

commercialnix 2y ago
The fresh grads in question came from reputable UC schools. Given the degrees they were (or almost were) holding, and where they came from, they are expected to at least give a shit about Unix-like systems, if not actually have a clue about them. We are a business, not a charity daycare, we do have to actually *judge* employees we hire on their merits. > number of startups do use Mac Modern day macOS is "fine" for the people who will be doing everything they do in Google Chrome. The organizations I tend to frequent are of very high talent density, hence a software developer who forthcomingly prefers macOS and is clueless about *software* (ie operating systems) in a fundamental way is looked down on (and rightly so) by the higher echelon of talent.

pxc 2y ago

> At this one startup I was at, I asked one of the fresh grad hires who had a really neat looking terminal what his Oh My Zsh plugins did. He couldn't name more than two and didn't really know them. I asked him what a process' exit status was and somehow he didn't know it. > All of the other fresh grad hires tried to use Ubuntu systems with a Windows XP mindset. I've written about this on HN before, but the fact is that for many, having a pleasant experience on the terminal is a prerequisite for them taking the time to actually learn the basics. The the terminal emulator isn't a pleasant, cozy place to work in even for newbies, people won't stick around to learn fundamentals like exit statuses or job control. By the same token, there are a lot of people with little previous command-line experience who respond very well to some friendlier defaults in their shell, and become much more interested in further customizing their experience and learning about the Unix environment.

commercialnix 2y ago
The competency crisis is very real.