Getting to the next interview stage is not 'getting something back' according to his criteria - at that stage he doesn't know if he wants to progress, and doing a test doesn't provide more information. It gives the company information on whether it wants to progress, but not the candidate.
Also, refreshing memory on coding tests is not exactly getting a lot back. You don't need to do an interview to do a coding test, if that's your fetish.
Not that I completely agree with the guy. I don't mind coding tests or assignments, except when I have no idea whether or not I actually want to work at a company when they give me one. So, in that case, unless I'm really bored or feeling especially unemployed, I don't put a lot of effort in. I do understand why companies do them, and the company I work for does.
Thanks, that's essentially the answer I was about to write.
I think the main disagreement here is that OP considers hiring him to be a privilege where parent considers being hired by him to be one. As long as parent is OK missing out on all the developers that aren't hungry enough to subject themselves to one-sided interviews like this, he'll be fine.
I like to think there's a high correlation between one's skills and unwillingness to accommodate arbitrary processes, but have nothing to back that up.
I read the article - your points are covered by it, maybe that's why people are downvoting instead of discussing.
That quote attributes more credit to programma2003 than wiring (precursor vs. inspired by). Is that an accurate portrayal of the history?
And there's a middle ground between stating inspiration and getting a tattoo. Inspiration implies idea not substance. Since it was a fork, 'based on' may be more appropriate.
Small structural changes can result in large changes in effect and toxicity. Moving to a new series like NBoMe which may share some properties, from halogenated phenylethylamines can mean very different effects.
Likewise sulfur compounds like the 2C-T series may be very different.
The fact that they all start with 2C, indicating a phenylethylamine, is not enough of a discriminator for their action.
I know you're joking, but I've heard this 'tip' before and am puzzled because there is always a backlog in my head of "shit that is fucked up" on any given project. There doesn't seem to be any need to throw some made-up bug on top of that list for me to have something to start fixing if nothing else comes to mind.
The article is very opinionated, with bolded sentences, repeated phrasing, and is mainly imperatives.
The immediate response for me is 'some other fucker is telling me I have to work now?'
Work means different things for different people.
Also, I guess your opinion is actually more nuanced than the article implies, and though I still might not appreciate it, I wouldn't be as annoyed if the article was an honest exploration instead of a rushed polemic.
So, this is the culmination of 8 years of rants and blog posts? This is what he's been trying to say all that time? What a peak he has reached. What an insight.
I'm trying to think of an apt analogy for this post that doesn't involve vomit or defecation, but it's hard. From the introduction proclaiming how readers will be stunned by how clearly and resoundingly true the revelation revealed within will be, to the literary diarrhea it's followed by... it's like a little kid proudly telling his parents he finally used the toilet properly only for them to find he completely missed the bowl. Yeah, I failed.
If the political spectrum is deeply flawed, as he said, then why even try to hack it onto something completely unrelated, made of individual technical points where each programmer may have a different approach?
I don't know, I like a lot of his past posts, but I don't dig this one. I don't think it provides any useful insight whatsoever.
I get the feeling his essay is setting the scene for more to come, most likely around Project Grok. The name is well suited, Yegge really understands how code works.
Why hack on it? Because it's what hackers do. Steve only pushes it further and hacks the philosophy of it. I love his essays as food for thought, and I respect him for publishing his in-process thoughts about the matter to let the idea out.
To me, this post was quite entertaining and broadened my perspective a little bit again. The only downside, as is the case with most of his other essays, is that it definitively wasn't long enough.
Go read the first comments from a sixteen year old social outcast who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time. It's that, but with Yegge as the pimply protagonist and American politics playing the role of Objectivism.
Also, refreshing memory on coding tests is not exactly getting a lot back. You don't need to do an interview to do a coding test, if that's your fetish.
Not that I completely agree with the guy. I don't mind coding tests or assignments, except when I have no idea whether or not I actually want to work at a company when they give me one. So, in that case, unless I'm really bored or feeling especially unemployed, I don't put a lot of effort in. I do understand why companies do them, and the company I work for does.