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The only thing I will now remember this guy for is when he volunteered to work for Twitter/X after Elon took over. He failed to get twitter code building locall

by skizm 3mo ago

The only thing I will now remember this guy for is when he volunteered to work for Twitter/X after Elon took over. He failed to get twitter code building locally for about 4 weeks when attempting to change some placeholder text in the twitter search bar. He ultimately couldn't figure it out and then immediately quit lol. He even ran a poll on his twitter asking if he should quit, most people voted "NO" then he quit anyway.

the_real_cher 3mo ago
To be fair I think he's more of a hardware guy.
aftbit 3mo ago
I'll never forget Cydia or the PS3 hacks lol.
- consumer451 3mo ago
  Same here. While I diverge from his opinion trees on many things these days, dude is/was an absolute rockstar to me.
yellow_lead 3mo ago
Guy was also tryna hire other interns as an intern himself, lol
- mingus88 3mo ago
  That’s called a “referral”
rustybolt 3mo ago
If you ever saw this guy program you know he's very competent so IMHO that reflects badly on twitter, tbh.
- skizm 3mo ago
  Totally fair! I think it is more of a reminder that making impact at large companies can be hard even for competent people.
- TheAceOfHearts 3mo ago
  I think the more likely explanation is that he's just not as familiar with frontend web development and react, so he underestimated the difficulty. He was asking for help on Twitter for how to make pills inside of a text field. His failure was caused by a knowledge check rather than a skill check.
  - deleted 3mo ago
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  - red-iron-pine 3mo ago
    > His failure was caused by a knowledge check rather than a skill check. whats the difference w/r/t programming? in this case I'd argue the knowledge was the skill
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      Skill is inherent, abstract, hard to modify, and generic. Problem solving is skill. Knowledge is knowing the syntax for a textbox in React.
      - lkirkwood 3mo ago
        Not much skill in problem solving if you can't Google some react syntax
- solid_fuel 3mo ago
  It’s just an example of the fact that programming is far more than code. It is also managing dependencies, build systems, making architectural decisions, developer support, etc. It is very possible to be good at slinging code and bad at everything that is required to support deployed code. Based on geohotz history, I wouldn’t be surprised if he falls in that bucket - hacking and algorithm skills are great but don’t lend themselves at all to building twitter. That’s why it is foolish to pretend like one guy is great or even good at everything.
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TheAceOfHearts 3mo ago
If I remember correctly, he wanted to fix the web search UI to match the features offered by Discord. He even crowdsourced some free work from his followers by asking them for help in implementing visual pills in text fields or something like that. The basic feature set he wanted to implement wouldn't have been very difficult for someone who is experienced with react, but I'm imagining there's lots of minor quirks with the "last mile" of details related to internationalization / localization and accessibility.

by skizm 3mo ago

the_real_cher 3mo ago

To be fair I think he's more of a hardware guy.

aftbit 3mo ago

I'll never forget Cydia or the PS3 hacks lol.

consumer451 3mo ago
Same here. While I diverge from his opinion trees on many things these days, dude is/was an absolute rockstar to me.

yellow_lead 3mo ago

Guy was also tryna hire other interns as an intern himself, lol

mingus88 3mo ago
That’s called a “referral”

rustybolt 3mo ago

If you ever saw this guy program you know he's very competent so IMHO that reflects badly on twitter, tbh.

skizm 3mo ago
Totally fair! I think it is more of a reminder that making impact at large companies can be hard even for competent people.
TheAceOfHearts 3mo ago
I think the more likely explanation is that he's just not as familiar with frontend web development and react, so he underestimated the difficulty. He was asking for help on Twitter for how to make pills inside of a text field. His failure was caused by a knowledge check rather than a skill check.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- red-iron-pine 3mo ago
  > His failure was caused by a knowledge check rather than a skill check. whats the difference w/r/t programming? in this case I'd argue the knowledge was the skill
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    Skill is inherent, abstract, hard to modify, and generic. Problem solving is skill. Knowledge is knowing the syntax for a textbox in React.
    - lkirkwood 3mo ago
      Not much skill in problem solving if you can't Google some react syntax
solid_fuel 3mo ago
It’s just an example of the fact that programming is far more than code. It is also managing dependencies, build systems, making architectural decisions, developer support, etc. It is very possible to be good at slinging code and bad at everything that is required to support deployed code. Based on geohotz history, I wouldn’t be surprised if he falls in that bucket - hacking and algorithm skills are great but don’t lend themselves at all to building twitter. That’s why it is foolish to pretend like one guy is great or even good at everything.

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TheAceOfHearts 3mo ago

If I remember correctly, he wanted to fix the web search UI to match the features offered by Discord. He even crowdsourced some free work from his followers by asking them for help in implementing visual pills in text fields or something like that. The basic feature set he wanted to implement wouldn't have been very difficult for someone who is experienced with react, but I'm imagining there's lots of minor quirks with the "last mile" of details related to internationalization / localization and accessibility.