Coderwall (YC W12) Wants to be the Reputation System for Developers | Hacker News Reader

Coderwall (YC W12) Wants to be the Reputation System for Developers

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74 pointsllambda34 comments

What problem is it that you are trying to solve, exactly? That it is hard to find good developers? It is, but that is not because they can't be found (in which case your app might help) but because there isn't enough of them to go around at the current price point, which means that nearly all the good ones have a job and if not, they will be able to get one reasonably fast. Simply getting more companies to bid on the good ones won't do much, as most companies won't let you work more than one job and most developers wouldn't want to anyway.

If you really want to end the shortage then you either have to drastically increase salary, pricing most companies out of the range and thereby cutting demand, or you have to create a lot more developers.

If you want to make it easier for the companies to hire, then you could become company change consultants and work to change the companies into places with no bullshit and where developers are actually respected. That would be awesome from our perspective, and from the perspective of the economy but is properly also the least likely.

That's not entirely true. A lot of very talented people are being wasted at bad jobs. In many cases, they don't even realize it because one of the features of a bad job is that it will often make you feel bad about yourself (as with other types of bad relationships). There would be a lot more "good developers" if everyone were in the job that is right for them.

I agree that a good portion of the "hiring crunch" right now is an issue of mis-allocation rather than raw under-supply.

Yahoo! has tons of great engineers working on really hard technical problems. What qualified engineer there wouldn't be better off at even, say, Facebook? The engineers who work on Sherpa, for example, are highly qualified.

I have a hard time seeing Coderwall as the solution, though. (Not that you're arguing that it is.)

Why?

The core design decisions in the product are going to attract the kind of people who like to show off. Badges? Achievements? Public profiles styled a la the Facebook timeline?

Those are the engineers who, by and large, are already showing off. They have public personas, whether on GitHub, Twitter, major projects they contribute to, or just being "personalities" in their community.

The product that gives exposure to engineers hiding inside companies like Yahoo! needs to be something less, well, game-like. I'm not sure what that looks like, but that's my first impression of Coderwall.

It feels like a cargo cult. All these little gamey doodads don't add up to a coherent thesis about how to get engineers more exposure. It feels more something that came out of this kind of conversation:

  Person A: Hey, we need to increase engagement.  How can we do that?
  Person B: Achievements!  That'll do it!

This is why GitHub is so marvelous. It didn't start out with the idea of getting engineers more exposure. The exposure is a side effect of making it easier to contribute in public than in private. That'd be my starting point for doing something really radical: what can we make public that used to be private, in a way that excites developers?

Making GitHub activity "even more" public, or aggregating it in a way that's easier for non-technical people to consume, is probably not the first thing I'd try. It is the easiest, though. (For me, that's a reason not to do it, rather than a reason to do it.)

"Coderwall is a striking modern profile for developers. Standout and be recognized for the awesome things you're learning and building."-From their website.

Throwing this out there: awesome developers could and probably should be able to make anything that coderwall could offer in terms of awesome profiles. IMO the best way to stand out is to build your own website with some open source stuff, put up your projects, and have a few links to online accounts that you put a lot of effort into making useful. By using coderwall, it looks like a developer would be only gaining access to people who are too lazy to look through their awesome website.

There is a Mark Twain quote that is escaping me that would really apply here. Something to do with crowds and what to do when everybody else is doing or thinking something.

EDIT: They have a very pretty website though. Kudos for that.

IMO the best way to stand out is to build your own website

It's difficult to compare a large group of people based on their websites though- you can't exactly tabulate the data. I suspect that's the idea behind Coderwall- that companies will pay to mine data and find prospective employees.

I don't think Coderwall will/is meant to replace individual web sites, though.

Also, building your own website isn't exactly the advice I'd give to, say, someone with 20 years of Java experience but who's never done any work on web stuff.

I don't think comparing developers based off the achievements on Coderwall is helpful either.

The best way to stand out is to go and have lunch,dinner,breakfast with people who might need your services. I think it's called networking.

I could care less about being known as the best programmer in the world, I want to be guy people turn to when they have a problem. By the time people realize they need a developer it's so far down the food chain that most of the value has been extracted by people who go to breakfast lunch and dinner with people. People who network create value, people who code create software.

I would love to read a blog post about this.

People who network don't create value. They extract it. Don't confuse the two.

But yes, developers should become better at extracting the value they create.

Absurd absolutism and a false dichotomy. So absurd, in fact, it borders on being diagnostic of the writer of the sentiment. Networking creates value -- for you. That value comes in the form of relationships with the right people.

Not just for you: if your networking makes people hire you and you subsequently add value, then the time invested in networking was an integral part of 'adding value'. If you add more value than someone else would have, it's even a net win for society as a whole.

In other words, get out of programming and go into sales. I've been saying this for a long time.

Perhaps:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

Developers aren't necessary web developers.

I've done both sides of the game, but I sure know that my skills at slinging HTML and CSS didn't improve whilst I was deep in backend C code.

I don't want another website/web-app (GitHub, StackOverflow, place-with-karma-where-cool-kids-hangout) where I have to prove myself again and again.

Especially not when the website has more controls than I am.

Especially knowing that it is better to use my free time to make a business than showcase my skill (unless you're a contractor/consultant).

Making a business can be pretty good advertising for a consultant.

I just signed up for it using my github account, and it suggested the skills "Loving IE6" and "Visual Basic". Erm, WHAT? I can't remember when I wrote my last line of Visual Basic code, and I'm certain I haven't touched any on github.

The idea is nice, but the implementation is a bit of a downer.

If I remember correctly from another article, they suggest those skills so that you go in and correct them. By doing something outrageous, they get you to react and fix the "problem".

Did you put in new skills? If so, then it is working.

Link here: http://coderwall.com/blog/2012-02-23-hating-on-IE6

At that point I'd think the "problem" was me keeping my info on their site, easy enough to correct.

Those suggestions are just for fun. We expect most developers do not actually "Love IE6"

I like fun as much as the next guy.

But if I use you to showcase my skills, then I need to know that there is nothing, anywhere, that can be the least bit likely to cause an employer to not hire me. You start up is not one that can be 'edgy'. Not ever close.

Would be nice to have a "company wall". So companies can actually proof that they've got plenty of rock-star developers. Would be a nice way of attracting more talent.

We are working on that right now...look for it in the next few weeks

Nah, that's cool. I don't want to gamify my life.

I think Coderwall is fun, but probably not something I'd ever take seriously. Especially since it's easy to tailor your account to get more achievements.

Pretty cool, but I'd love it if it would show all the projects I've contributed to along with how much I've contributed.

The list of projects on my account isn't a good way to see what I've done, loads of it is stuff I've just forked and not done much with (or maybe fixed one tiny thing), then there's the odd thing I've commit more to, but you can't tell that.

It would be even nicer to have a way to highlight bits I'm especially proud of :)

We already highlight some contributions, e.g. how many times you've committed to ruby on rails core. We plan to do it for other popular repos and contributions in the future.

We agree there are also meaningful accomplishments outside of open source so we made it possible to share those special bits w/links on your profile too.

The more I come across sites like these, the more I'm convinced the resume isn't going away. A resume with a link to my Github should cut it for most people looking to recruit. Follow up with a phone call and decide whether I'm able to communicate half decently and that should get the ball rolling.

Are they going to account for the fact that not all developers will be in their system? It will matter whether they say a developer has the best reputation as compared to other developers in their system as opposed to all developers, which they cannot possibly know.

Some quick comments:

The skillsets in the profile needs some kind of order – either an icon (ie: ruby stone for Ruby) or alphabetical order (makes it easy for the reader to glance over). Right now I have to read each skill individually since everyone's skill set are in different order and jumbled up in both rows and columns (hard on the eyes to follow).

The icons – I have no idea what the icons are – it'll be hard on the user to mouse hover over every single icon (and it isn't instant hover, there's a second delay), it can get very frustrating if a user needs to look at more than 1 profile. Icons should be self explanatory. All the different animal icons and color combinations can get very overwhelming.

I love it. Hopefully my friends join soon. I love the background image specific to my city. HTML & CSS isn't my favorite thing to work with in the world but I'm a sucker for eye candy. I'm excited about this.

I signed up if only to help them with their Hockey stick graph they need for VCs. ;) Good job keep up the good work.

Note: when you create your profile and don't have an Image (At least in Chrome) you get the "broken link" image and that feel very unfinished, I would correct that ASAP.

http://folyo.me is a bit like this, but for designers. And coincidentally, Coderwall is one of the companies who's used Folyo to find a designer.

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