Coders Who Don't Job Interview: Zed Shaw
codebelay.com
codebelay.com
Before I was famous I'd have to scrounge around for shitty jobs. Now they just come to me.
Truth is, I still interview, I still do the stupid coding quizzes, I still send my resume, not because I have to, but because I want to be taken seriously and treated fairly with the understanding that I got hired because I know what I'm doing. Not because of my "fame".
After that, the jobs are pretty uninspiring these days and while the work environment may be pleasant, I rarely find any place that's interested in taking a big risk with my ideas.
Do you mean shitty jobs just come to you? Or better stuff? Couldn't tell if you were trying to be funny there or not.
I suspect that i am spending way too much time on reddit, and should learn to take things at their face value.
Perhaps "well known within certain programming communities" would be more apt.
I've always thought that people who chose to use hypertext this way were seriously missing the point.
I don't see how this is an inferior option to allowing all sites to execute local and cross-domain JavaScript.
I have access to the Good Stuff that JS enables - and there's lots of Good Stuff! But with NoScript on, I (a) get to see who's following web standards and who isn't, (b) get pages that load faster, (c) get a more secure browsing experience, and (d) by default am spared the UI/UX idiocy that some sites try to perpetrate (especially in the area of intrusive advertising).
Using NoScript and ad-blocking is pretty much like using Instapaper or the new Reader feature of Safari - it is an assertion of the user's rights. It says "no no no, fuck all your irrelevant stuff: give me CONTENT." Not advertising, not fluff, not background images, not boilerplate: CONTENT. I like how Nathan Bowers put it: "If it looks better in Instapaper than in the browser, back to the drawing board."[1] If you purposefully make it harder for visitors to your web site to get the content they care about, you're a bad programmer and a bad person. Bad JS is one of the most frequent manifestations of making it harder to get to the content - and so in my browser, JS is a privilege, not a right.
Speaking of privilege: I am privileged - I'm about 100% able-bodied. If you say 'fuck off' to and ignore users who are not - who are for example not sighted, can't use a mouse, or can't distinguish certain colors - then you're also a bad person, in a different way.
But no, it's not bad web development practice to ignore the tiny percentage of people who don't have javascript enabled, at least when writing a web app - in fact, ignoring that segment of the population frees you to do wonderful things! Things that aren't possible with straight HTML.
Trying to make things work well for those without JS enabled is like Microsoft's trying to make their new OS software compatible all the way back to DOS, and having to make all sorts of unfortunate design decisions as a result. I would much rather make my website awesome for 95% of potential users and leverage the full power of JS than make it mediocre and usable by 100%. It's a choice, and one that I happily make.
I think more and more web developers will be making that choice in the coming years (not the ones with content sites, maybe, but who knows). That's what I meant when I said they'd start ignoring you.
Please, tone down the rhetoric and try to be more civil.
Your comment was helpful, it taught me things I don't know, it's a great comment. Except, you chose to call others "bad people", not once but twice, for doing something you don't agree with.
I can take you not liking sites that have ads. I can even take you saying that people who make such sites are bad programmers (though I disagree).
But seriously, putting "stuff in the way of content you care about" makes someone a bad person? Even if I halfway agreed with this, you're talking about someone else's site and someone else's content, that they chose to generously share with you. What makes you entitled to not only read that content, but to call them a bad person for putting in ads?
As a note here, though (also for others), it doesn’t pop up just from double-clicking text; you only get a small “Learn more” after that, and the popup only shows up if you then click the Learn More button.
I'd like to see some clarification on this. A lot of the work I do (inside a large organisation) seems to involve inventive approaches to problems. Maybe not like writing new web servers, but certainly the kind of non-routine stuff that keeps a hacker happy. I don't (often) do this just for fun - there's simply not enough time to solve problems the boring way.
"Professionally though, inspiration is for amateurs and I just do my work."
I'd also like to see some clarification on this. Is Zed saying that it's wrong to take a novel approach to one's work? Or that maybe it's better to just do things the way you're told and save the creative juices for personal endeavours? I might just be mis-reading this completely. Any help much appreciated...
As for the second comment, I'm just saying that if you have to wait around for inspiration before you can do anything then you're just an amateur. I may not be as into what I do without inspiration, but in my day job I can just do what I need without waiting around for a muse to strike me with Thor's hammer. I find people who walk around screaming that they "MUST BE PASSIONATE!" are either deluded, stupid, or just prima donnas who can't sit down and do the damn job. Personally I'd take someone objective and little critical over some passionate Yes-Man.
Now, that's at work, where usually I'm just slinging code for someone else to make money off of and my interest is really only in doing my job well, not in what I'm doing.
You can be great on paper and by reputation, but turns out Zed and I don't jive.
Edit: Interviewing can reveal these things, for both the applicant and the hiring company.
I admire Zed. His angry rants make me laugh. His ability to pump out decent code is brobdingnagian. He's usually right.
But of course, part of what makes his rants so funny is that even the minimum niceties are dispensed with. I'm not sure if that means Zed can be inserted into a team of ordinary folk without wasteful drama from people with hurt feelings.
I understand Zed's work mostly takes the form of freelancing. That's probably the best fit.
Uh. I've seen you be a 'dick' to people who raised perfectly valid points in a non-confrontational manner.
Everyone knows that being famous for your work requires a combination of talent, luck, and hard work, but everyone can't be Zed Shaw. There isn't room. It would be like telling actors "Just do what Jim Carrey did."
I got my first job a month ago simply by being knowing someone on IRC.
I think it's a good point though, that maybe just because you aren't guaranteed to be famous, Zed Shaw probably has some highly effective habits that all developers can learn from. And you don't have to be famous for his advice to be helpful.
Mmm... if you are not a Chrome user... well... you should become one! :)
But it's important to point out that by virtue of sharing knowledge and posting pastebin urls of your code over a period of time, you are already interviewing, in a sense.
There are a large number of startups and small businesses where I could get a job simply by saying "Hey, I'm interested", walking in, and having a 15-minute chat with the founder. I would probably not want to work for most of them, though, because it's quite boring being the smartest guy in the room.
However, the number of people who could get hired at Google or Facebook without an interview is probably in the dozens to low hundreds, worldwide. And many of them probably aren't interested, because they've got their F-you money, or they have a nice tenured research position somewhere where they can do whatever they want.
How isn't that an interview?
1) Is this person knowledgeable and capable of performing the job I need them to do?
2) Is this person a cultural/personable fit for my team?
I think the point of this article is that when you're a "famous" developer with known traits, number 1 is dispensed with. The 15 minute chat is just to determine number 2.
I myself have gotten several jobs after just a recommendation from a friend and a quick drink with the manager.
If you had joined Facebook in 2005 you might have been the best programmer, but you would not have been the smartest guy in the room.
The tldr is: "How to Have a Writing Career Like Mine: You Can't"
Another take on the student loan system: http://consumerist.com/2010/09/student-loans-gateway-drug-to...
Now, banks and private loan companies can go to hell.
I knew I wasn't the only one.