This is all really good stuff, and thankfully I feel like I have been practicing a fair bit of this already (so, I could be biased here!).
I like the umbrella callout especially, that one took me a few years to really internalize. "Protection" isn't as beneficial as "good stress" is. You don't just protect muscles, you use them in a responsible manner to get stronger. I've started trying to ensure my team gets a lot of "good stress" (so projects that grow careers, develop expertise, etc), while getting some concentrated down time after to rest, reflect and grow (often it manifests as time to fix bugs and just not be the star of the show).
This was the original purpose of Twitter-- it was advertised as a network where anyone could post what they're doing and notify their friends immediately. Even until recently tweets could be received via SMS (not sure about the current status of that feature) so you'd see in real time what they're up to.
Of course, Twitter/X/etc are a far cry from that now-- but it could be worth trying where you and your friends use the service like that.
I'm going to nitpick on this line a bit, but bring it back to his core argument at the end. And I'm going to nitpick because in part, lines like this raise my hackles, but also because I think lines like this undercut his own argument:
This type of modern conservatism (which is what this take from George is, and is very tied to a new type of non-religious social conservatism) has lost the plot when it comes to basic justice. Threats in person to people are just plain old crimes. But package them in a funny picture online and it's free reign. Free speech absolutists (not sure that's what George is, but just using this as a broad label) have pretty convenient takes when it comes to the basic rule of law. Often those takes are pretty circumstantial, in some cases they're more than happy to deem speech threatening, but in the vast majority of threatening speech people actually experience, not so much. And remember, if the law is arbitrarily applied, it makes people less interested in a democracy, but they don't seem bothered by that.
Nor do they seem too bothered about the tens of thousands of people who suffer legitimate threats online daily. The social media companies know who those people are, down to what they had for breakfast that day. If we actually dared to, you know, enforce laws around threatening people our jails would be overflowing.
I agree to a very minor degree: you can google "jailed for memes" and find some questionable choices, but to use your voice for those handfuls of situations when literally thousands upon thousands of people are legitimately threatened each day online? I think I can guess what your true intents are: its to further a brutal status quo so you continue feeling good. It doesn't help his argument that the sentence before this line bemoans the end of empire.
And the frustrating thing is that one of his recommendations is kind of good: end the funny money system of business (not sure I agree with the how of the gold standard, but I'd have to defer to others there). But George just undercuts his argument with lines like this about memes, because if you pick it apart it just means he's advocating for the funny money version of enforcing the law. Ah, so George you're not against funny money in principle, it's more like "Funny money for me, but not for thee."
I like arguments like this because it's a reminder that details matter. I clearly see them as the manipulation they are, but I do like them nonetheless.
I remember watching a story about asylum seekers who had to use Skype to dial in to get an appointment. At one point, one of them says to the camera "I often dream about the call music." I would be surprised if the call music isn't (at this point at least) configurable in some way, but it's still humbling to realize that a minor thing like a loader or sound file can represent the entire product to someone at a very stressful time in their life.
Yeah that's the thing, it's hard to say how much you are bogged down. As time goes on the value of the 1.5x multiplier increases in value, but then you also run the risk of massive spaghetti code (more or less, depends on what the genie considers good).
I don't know if there's great value in trying to figure out if you would quantitatively get ahead though. I think the value is in just realizing that some groups are inclined to perhaps take that risk, and some groups are not.
Overall I like posts like these, as they are a reminder that you're not really paid for agonizing over eloquent or great code, but just code that "gets the job done". But then if you over-index on this viewpoint, you'll end up needing posts which remind you that this is a craft and that code needs some agonizing over.
What I've been pondering lately is another way to sum this up that is more future focused: Let's say a genie walks into your project and says that you can have 1.5 times the features you have right now, for 3x the code. The genie promises that the code will be "alright, maybe just kind of a bit bad". I think around 2/3 of developers would say no, but I suspect 2/3 of people in product management, sales, marketing, etc would say yes. Everyone would be sympathetic to the problems this would create, but the allure of getting 1.5X ahead on your roadmap is probably too hard to ignore for those other disciplines. It's basically accelerating all your other work streams by 1.5, at the expense of potentially bogging down dev. Obviously, countless caveats exist, but it does in general feel right, and feels like it hints at the fundamental causes of tension between business and development.
This is really cool. I like it. I think a few simple things would be:
-- a toggle to ensure that what you get back is automatically translated to english, and the translation is easier to read. In fact, making sure you can always see translations right away would help, even for suggestions.
-- Much simpler conversations to begin with, my Spanish is basically non-existent from when I took it in school, and the teacher input and the cafe prompt was already too far over my head.
Downvotes shall come and that's ok-- but it's really interesting how radically different the experience of filling gas is for men and women. I've had multiple conversations with female friends where they discuss factoring in personal safety and the chance of being bothered while filling gas. It's a captive situation and hard to leave quickly. Aside from the odd request for money, I don't get bothered while filling gas, but that's not true for many many people.
I whiled away so many afternoons at Barnes & Noble. We'd drive 30 minutes from our small town to the nearest big city and go sit and enjoy an afternoon reading. I would say maybe 1 out of every 3 visits would result in someone buying a book, but we never felt compelled to buy anything. For where we were in the country, the magazine selection felt incredibly cosmopolitan, and a window into the broader world.
To me, a Barnes and Noble still symbolizes the joy and worldliness of reading. Whenever I'm with family and shopping, if I'm not out to buy anything I still opt to spend some time reading in a B&N. I'm glad this chain is back on its feet and growing again. For lots of places, and lots of people, B&N is a lifeline.
As others have said, if you're in reasonably good health, IVF is definitely an option for having kids. It could be good excuse to get that big enterprise job, as I know SalesForce offers IVF insurance as part of its comp.
Barring that, fostering is a possibility, but the requirements to do so and the ease of it vary on where you are. Fostering is not something to enter into lightly, but it seems to be highly rewarding. I have a friend adopting the child she fostered, it wasn't always easy, but she's very happy.
One trick to parenting is the almighty ROUTINE! Don't sacrifice it for anything. If your kid goes to bed at 7pm 6/7 nights a week, that's not a routine. Kids can't recognize complex routines, I find they're all or nothing.
We implemented a routine of bedtime at 6:30pm and it liberated our evenings. The routine means in evenings one partner always has to stay in unless we call a babysitter, but that's a small price to pay for being able to go out, or stay in and follow your hobbies and passions.
Now, to be fair, we have a good sleeper (but not a good eater, seems like you only get one!), but routines of all kinds help, and I think they can help all kids. Stick to the routine, it pays dividends.
> You cannot possibly expect every developer, even very experienced ones, to know every nook and cranny of every technology you specifically work with, but they are experienced enough to know how learn new skills quickly to complete a project.
I am specifically not doing that. Nor did my comments really warrant thinking that (maybe because I mentioned WCAG 2.0?). Testing, accessibility, architecture and good semantic code are skills that apply to all work in the front end space. If you're an experienced dev but you don't do those things, then I'm not exactly sure what experienced means? I don't want someone who has just built features without those things. It doesn't matter what framework you use or what libraries you know. I'm not sure how you took my comments to mean I'm doing this. I specifically tell candidates that we can teach them our specific tooling and about our business domain.
From my original comment I said "...aren't up to date on practices we care about, like accessibility, semantic HTML, app architecture etc" Perhaps "up to date" was the phrase that got under people's skin? Best practices are always evolving, but in all those categories, there is a pretty commonly understood bar of skills, and I often receive assignments that miss those marks.
Finally, I have encountered situations where one of those has been very under-skilled (most commonly accessibility), but the others were strong (testing, architecture, html/css). I have made calls in that case to hire with a plan that we'll work on the lagging skill.
I think in this case my comments were extrapolated on in an unwarranted manner. The internet isn't a perfect way to communicate, but at the end of the day I didn't say anything that is unreasonable. Also, it sounds like we're both in agreement on what makes for a good engineer.
I think I've nailed the source of this disconnect. I don't say it's a 4 hour assignment and then get mad when people don't spend longer, or filter our anyone who does well in the four hours. I go solely by the code I'm given. It's just that around 30% or applicants or so clearly spend longer because the assignment is so well done. That is all. I'm guessing this end result would happen with any amount of time I specify, be it 6, 9 or 20 hours.
Some people just really put effort in, and as I said in my top comment others don't. Often those others don't for valid reasons-- they have an offer on the table, they want another job more, etc. As I've said in other comments, I have no way of knowing who has put in more time (aside from Git history which isn't a clear picture, but indicative), nor would I create a malicious metric. Also, I clearly stated that I viewed this as a con of our hiring process. I'd love a clearer way to even out the time, but barring bringing in some more stressful process like some timed app or timed challenge, I don't think I can.
Say what you want, but rewarding folks who spent more time isn't disrespectful to other people who didn't. No job is a first come first serve scenario, you're both assessing each other on a variety of things, and it would be unfair of me to disregard people who excel out of fairness to those who don't.
1) The assignment is mid-flow after we're reasonably sure we'd want to work with said person, and if the assignment results in decline, I give actionable feedback why.
2) The time commitment can often be more on our end, several engineers review it, it's probably equal or more man hours. I think doing a block of fixed time would be more stressful, I've had to do that and it wasn't fun.
I would encourage you to read my other responses, I think together they offer more perspective on how I run my process. I'm not privileging anyone, lots of people submit great work and I really have no way of determining who went above the time allotted. I don't track time or cut anyone off (how would I? It'd be some logistical nightmare or I'd have to use some weird app to track how long they code?).
I gave an honest assessment of what I feel are the pros and cons of a hiring process. You seem to have inferred a lot based on that comment.
Finally, I do occasionally get assignments that don't work. Why even bother doing it then? Those tend to confused me the most. Would you hire someone who sent you any work that didn't compile?
I think this comment might get more acrimony than my top-level one, but at the end of the day I'm not that interested in hiring someone who only learned good fundamentals because it was asked of them or they were paid for it.
I made a decision in my career to consciously level up my skills-- testing, accessibility, documentation, etc-- all without being asked. Having good fundamentals just demonstrates interest at the end of the day. I don't want a master craftsman here. I just want someone who cares and tries to write good code. That's not an unfair ask. I have to hire someone I want to work with and collaborate with, and truth be told if someone won't learn a best practice in our field with being paid or it being requested, despite how nice they are, I'm not excited to work with them.
That's an interesting one, I can't tell fully as the commit doesn't state when the coding started, but you can just take a look at the history and see short bursts of work. Generally it seems like people do the assignment in 2 bursts of work.