Passion
WOW! After reading this link on Twitter, I have to say... I'm disgusted.
Being a good and passionate developer has nothing to do with Open Source contributions, StackOverflow status or anything to do with Github. And the worst offender on the list... Certifications.
Those are great things. Contributing to those communities is something I fully support. And I can agree that if I were interviewing for a job that if I could validate some of those contributions that it would certainly improve my opinion of them. There are a number of reasons why a motivated, talented programmer may not have any contributions here.
I'm going to start with Github... I don't fear posting my code anywhere, any time. I'm always an advocate for code reviews. Not having a Github account doesn't mean anything of the sort. I don't want or need feedback on my code. It isn't that my code is perfect, it is exactly that it is imperfect that I don't want people telling me. Oddly enough, the exact reason ties into why they are so in love with StackOverflow. I like to find my own answers. I learn INFINITELY less when someone tells me the solution, and infinitely more when I struggle with it myself.
If someone wants to see my code however, they just need to ask.
Could my code be better if I solicited feedback if I put it out there for the world to see? Absolutely. But the projects I'm working on aren't community projects. They are unlikely to draw any attention anyway. So, even if they were publicly available, they are unlikely to gain status which, by their metrics would still make me useless.
If I'm relying on Github for my CV, then I only really stand a chance if I happen to working on something that is in demand. Something mainstream. I need to draw traffic to garner the metrics they are looking for. If you're doing something mainstream, there are a million and one alternatives out there. I don't do mainstream. I solve specific problems. And I try to solve them better than generic solutions are able too. Does that make me more or less valuable? I would have to say, neither. But, people like me are always solving problems. Always pushing themselves. Always getting better. I simply have no community to contribute to.
StackOverflow is an even worse metric. The only reason I end up there is that I need an answer. If it is answered I walk away. If it isn't, someone has already asked it. I would do that community no good by creating another thread to ask the same question. So, the only reason for me to be contributing there is if I'm specifically looking to puff up my resume or I'm more about being a community resource than I am about programming. So, in this case I might actually hold this against someone. Either the person is more interested in scouring the internet for unanswered questions (thanks to those people by the way... I have received help from there before) or they are only answering questions to make themselves look good.
Open Source contributions are another murky one. The author acts like every developer is regularly leveraging tons of OSS and that those OSS projects regularly have defects which the persons leveraging it can fix. As a .Net developer... probably 95% of pure .Net using standard C# libraries. I regularly use a very small number of 3rd party libraries, some of which are open source. Unsurprisingly, I choose fairly mature projects. I can count on one hand the number of bugs I've encountered. The two times (yes two total) that I have hit bugs in, I pulled down the code, fixed them locally. One project had a high bar for accepting push requests (some community rating linked with other push requests, I had no street creds so to speak, so my fix couldn't be submitted). In the other case the team managing the code had abandoned it.
Depending on the projects you use and the depths to which you use them, you may, like me, almost never hit a bug. Or, in some cases you may be working on the fringes and hitting bugs regularly. If someone has them... absolutely I would consider OSS contributions a valuable thing. But if I saw that on a resume I would think it a tad pretentious. It is more something I'd like to discover during the interview process, get the details, then go look into it after the fact.
And last is certifications. Yes, some people avoid them due to fear. I avoid them because they are horse shit. I have a University degree. That is far more expensive and a bigger gamble than any cert will ever be. Tests are about memorization, not learning or understanding. I worked on projects with the honors students and the things they did to get the grades they got were not the sorts of things to write home about. And I saw them back there every year asking the things that they SHOULD have remembered from first year. What makes you think people passing certs are any different? If anything, certs are easier to pass than University.
I wouldn't write someone off or think the world of them for having them or not. But, if they list them and they are relevant I'm going to grill them on the content those certs or degrees should have covered. And, in my experience a great number of people who have all of the right skills on paper prove they lost those skills the second they picked up the piece of paper. And frequently, those with long amounts of experience but little in the way of other credentials would make the other candidates look like drooling morons.
Passion is not about community contributions. Passion is about contributing in a way that matters to you. Sometimes that contribution helps a wide audience as in OSS or answering questions on StackOverflow. Sometimes it is helping friends and family. And sometimes it is doing things for yourself.
If someone told me I had no passion because I lacked those things, they'd be running the risk of having my passion drive me to punching them in the face.
The outlet for my passion? I write software for my wife and brother. I use it as a platform to teach myself new technologies and to improve myself. Those projects aren't on Github because they are specific to their business. I didn't need to contribute to StackOverflow or any OSS to get them running (and both having been running for months bug free). And I learned and applied the techs rather than taking a cert. I have real projects to show, not a piece of paper.
Being a good and passionate developer has nothing to do with Open Source contributions, StackOverflow status or anything to do with Github. And the worst offender on the list... Certifications.
Those are great things. Contributing to those communities is something I fully support. And I can agree that if I were interviewing for a job that if I could validate some of those contributions that it would certainly improve my opinion of them. There are a number of reasons why a motivated, talented programmer may not have any contributions here.
I'm going to start with Github... I don't fear posting my code anywhere, any time. I'm always an advocate for code reviews. Not having a Github account doesn't mean anything of the sort. I don't want or need feedback on my code. It isn't that my code is perfect, it is exactly that it is imperfect that I don't want people telling me. Oddly enough, the exact reason ties into why they are so in love with StackOverflow. I like to find my own answers. I learn INFINITELY less when someone tells me the solution, and infinitely more when I struggle with it myself.
If someone wants to see my code however, they just need to ask.
Could my code be better if I solicited feedback if I put it out there for the world to see? Absolutely. But the projects I'm working on aren't community projects. They are unlikely to draw any attention anyway. So, even if they were publicly available, they are unlikely to gain status which, by their metrics would still make me useless.
If I'm relying on Github for my CV, then I only really stand a chance if I happen to working on something that is in demand. Something mainstream. I need to draw traffic to garner the metrics they are looking for. If you're doing something mainstream, there are a million and one alternatives out there. I don't do mainstream. I solve specific problems. And I try to solve them better than generic solutions are able too. Does that make me more or less valuable? I would have to say, neither. But, people like me are always solving problems. Always pushing themselves. Always getting better. I simply have no community to contribute to.
StackOverflow is an even worse metric. The only reason I end up there is that I need an answer. If it is answered I walk away. If it isn't, someone has already asked it. I would do that community no good by creating another thread to ask the same question. So, the only reason for me to be contributing there is if I'm specifically looking to puff up my resume or I'm more about being a community resource than I am about programming. So, in this case I might actually hold this against someone. Either the person is more interested in scouring the internet for unanswered questions (thanks to those people by the way... I have received help from there before) or they are only answering questions to make themselves look good.
Open Source contributions are another murky one. The author acts like every developer is regularly leveraging tons of OSS and that those OSS projects regularly have defects which the persons leveraging it can fix. As a .Net developer... probably 95% of pure .Net using standard C# libraries. I regularly use a very small number of 3rd party libraries, some of which are open source. Unsurprisingly, I choose fairly mature projects. I can count on one hand the number of bugs I've encountered. The two times (yes two total) that I have hit bugs in, I pulled down the code, fixed them locally. One project had a high bar for accepting push requests (some community rating linked with other push requests, I had no street creds so to speak, so my fix couldn't be submitted). In the other case the team managing the code had abandoned it.
Depending on the projects you use and the depths to which you use them, you may, like me, almost never hit a bug. Or, in some cases you may be working on the fringes and hitting bugs regularly. If someone has them... absolutely I would consider OSS contributions a valuable thing. But if I saw that on a resume I would think it a tad pretentious. It is more something I'd like to discover during the interview process, get the details, then go look into it after the fact.
And last is certifications. Yes, some people avoid them due to fear. I avoid them because they are horse shit. I have a University degree. That is far more expensive and a bigger gamble than any cert will ever be. Tests are about memorization, not learning or understanding. I worked on projects with the honors students and the things they did to get the grades they got were not the sorts of things to write home about. And I saw them back there every year asking the things that they SHOULD have remembered from first year. What makes you think people passing certs are any different? If anything, certs are easier to pass than University.
I wouldn't write someone off or think the world of them for having them or not. But, if they list them and they are relevant I'm going to grill them on the content those certs or degrees should have covered. And, in my experience a great number of people who have all of the right skills on paper prove they lost those skills the second they picked up the piece of paper. And frequently, those with long amounts of experience but little in the way of other credentials would make the other candidates look like drooling morons.
Passion is not about community contributions. Passion is about contributing in a way that matters to you. Sometimes that contribution helps a wide audience as in OSS or answering questions on StackOverflow. Sometimes it is helping friends and family. And sometimes it is doing things for yourself.
If someone told me I had no passion because I lacked those things, they'd be running the risk of having my passion drive me to punching them in the face.
The outlet for my passion? I write software for my wife and brother. I use it as a platform to teach myself new technologies and to improve myself. Those projects aren't on Github because they are specific to their business. I didn't need to contribute to StackOverflow or any OSS to get them running (and both having been running for months bug free). And I learned and applied the techs rather than taking a cert. I have real projects to show, not a piece of paper.
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