For the same reason (I'm using Ctrl+a in the shell), I'm using Ctrl+q as prefix for tmux. I'm quite surprised that I've never heard of anybody else using this combination.
I'm not sure if you're sarcastic or not, but would you hire a programmer who can't compute "2+3" in his head? The same argument can be made for basic maths operations: we all have calculators (applications).
I have never been in an interview for a job as programmer, to be honest, but really, we're talking about fizzbuzz here. You should be able to recite it in your favourite programming language. :)
For more complicated tasks I guess you can say it's debatable when whiteboard is OK and when you should give the candidate access to a computer.
It's not about how expensive a laptop is or isn't.
If somebody can't master the basic syntax of the language so that they can write a very basic algorithm without syntax errors and in such a way that it would run on the first try, they can't be very productive. And fizzbuzz is really the rock-bottom of the simple algorithms. Even a linked-list library would be a very reasonable thing to ask (if we're talking about C for instance).
If somebody has to go through a few edit/(compile)/debug/change cycles for each simple thing, it doesn't sound very productive.
Now, obviously if we're talking about an application that involves some baroque frameworks and class hierarchies, things are different, but simple things should be doable on paper.
Flexible vacation sounds a lot like flexible salary, in my opinion.
How do I know how much is reasonable? Also, how do you determine when the job is done, unless you have a very detailed to do list for the year? My job is never done, otherwise I'd be fired.
Also, I hear people mentioning "taking 4 weeks in a row" as something quite rare.
In most of the EU 4 weeks is quite on the lower end. I have 28 days and I have friends who have 32-35 days/year (working days).
This is one of the great benefits about living in Europe :).
Although I started with lisp, I think it's a good idea to learn Haskell first.
The type system and especially the type signatures can act as a visual reminder about the "core" of functional programming: having an input of this type and requiring an output of that type, which transformations (functions) should I use to accomplish this?
I guess the majority of repos are either bigger and useful open source projects or just small toys.
If you're looking at somebody with repos from the first category, most likely his resume will mention "author/ contributor to project X".
For the people in the second category, only thing you'd infer is that they can somewhat code. Which you could assume as well if they worked on any delivered project.
There are obviously exceptions in both cases.
While this works for freelancers/students/startupers, it doesn't work very well for people working in bigger companies.
If your interests are related to your day job, I think it's quite risky to put your code on GitHub, even if the code is not "official". While I do have a GitHub account with some code in it, that code is not really representative.
If having a relevant GitHub account becomes a pre-requisite, you may be overlooking some good people.
The incremental builds are taking about 5 minutes, which is not really long enough for me to do any big work, but I usually look if there are any new issues in the queue, look at code reviews (not the ones I'm reviewing, but what others reviewed) or try to do code review for smaller chunks of code.
I'm also a remote worker, but I work (mostly) on my local business hours. I'm in Brussels and my team is in California and I'm usually working a bit later (until around 7-8pm) to overlap with them and there's the occasional late night meeting, but rarely. This is a compromise on both sides (I'm working later than normal and they try to schedule the meetings early morning) and I think it's the only long term workable solution when you have teams in very different timezones. Otherwise you'll just burn out and get tired of having no social life and probably you'll health will be affected too.
Besides, do you really need to talk to them all day long? If you're a developer, can't you just have some "sync-up" meetings every other day or so, during their morning?