1,665 karma · joined August 6, 2011
I would put forth that this issue has passed out of "political issue" because of its obvious trajectory.
I think this issue has crossed a threshold. 61% of young Republican leaning Americans (18-29) support marriage equality. The issue has an obvious trajectory and end point, which means it has shifted in public perception from a "political issue" to simple intolerance, like racism or sexism.
There are still organizations in the US that consider "race purity" a political issue, but the vast majority of the country just considers it intolerance and hate.
Just a short time ago (1986) 1/3 of Americans considered interracial relationships "unacceptable"... today, 1/3 of Americans have a family member in an interracial relationship, and the vast majority consider it fine. It doesn't take long for something to shift from a political issue to a non-issue -- and if you are on the wrong side of history, you will called out.
My point being, I consider this no different than ensuring your CEO didn't donate to the KKK or any other hate group. Technically donating to the KKK is political speech, and you have every right to do it -- but you don't have a "right" to be CEO of Mozilla in spite of it.
Over time (around 15 years), I simply had to accept a negative correlation. It is something me and my peers spitball ideas about often these days. Our working, but entirely booze derived, theory is that the high GPA kids are generally able to keep top marks because mom and dad pay for everything, so they can devote themselves more easily to getting an A. But, this ease gives a sense of absolute entitlement and bitter, useless arrogance... versus the kid working a job, helping at home and struggling to lock down that B. But, just a theory and all that.
Two biggest things in my personal experience that ended up with amazing hires. Unashamed to admit they don't know something in the interview, treat it as a matter of simple fact - they don't know yet, but can find out. Program in multiple languages / explore languages / can speak about strengths and weaknesses across languages.
In my (obviously limited) experience, high GPAs have correlated to poor or even poisonous personalities. Often arrogant without merit, unable to change positions because of ego, and with an inability to adapt and learn.
Google appears to have done an experiment on a much grander scale and come to similar (but IMHO a little better written up) conclusions: http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top...
The reasons are often somewhat complex. Their application tracking software only supports word. Their IT department has sent word from atop the mountain to only accept .docx because it works with their AV and a bad virus got into the company via PDF last year.
It isn't the people you are going to be working with that are the problem, it is the people who defend the outer ring of large companies -- IT and HR departments.
Once you get through the screen, you can show them your fancy resume, but at that point, no one cares about your resume -- you already caught their attention and it is interview / references time.
If they specifically allow other formats, or request a specific format, use it. But, in the case that they don't specify -- go with the most common format in the industry, anything else is nuts.
Additionally, if the primary filter on talent is .docx versus .pdf (or .txt or even .tex) -- it is a place so stupid you probably don't want to work there anyway.
As for Mormon polygamy and hippy communes -- absolutely! As long as it is willing, consenting adults, I am all for it! But, right now, lets take this small step.
The bottom line is -- being homophobic is starting to reach the same point in popular culture as racism and sexism. Our society as a whole is becoming far less tolerant of such nonsense, being against gay marriage is treated like being against interracial marriage. Even 61% of young Republican leaning 18-29 year olds are in favor of marriage equality.
It follows a similar trend to interracial marriage (slow start, then a rapid increase in acceptance). In 1986, less than 35% of American's "approved" of interracial marriage. A mere 5 years later, the number was about 50% .. and 20 years later that vast majority approve of interracial marriage, with more than 30% having a family member involved in an interracial relationship.
That is when it hits home for people, when a friend of family member comes out (today, being in love with the same sex... in the 80s, being in love with another race) -- it becomes personal, and when it becomes personal, you can no longer abstract 'those' people -- now it is your friend, your sister, your cousin, the best man at your wedding, etc.
You can rail against marriage being crap (it is, I agree) -- but that isn't the point. If you are against marriage, I am with you 100% -- lets get rid of it as a government regulated institution! But, if it is around, it has to be an option for all. I think it is far too close to religion to be certified by government, but that ship has sailed long ago... gotta work within reality.
Also, undemocratic to demonize one side of the vote, are you kidding? That is the oldest democratic tradition!
As for why it gets more "marketing" than the death penalty and gun control. It gets more "marketing" than the death penalty because it touches more peoples lives. It gets FAR less "marketing" than gun control, gun control just has lots of marketing on both sides, a massive constitutional question, and is not trending towards consensus... marriage equality unequivocally is trending towards consensus... it will be a decided issue before it ever has the "marketing" of gun control.
While I am freaking ranting... this quote is idiocy "Beliefs that are protected, that include political and religious speech, are generally not something that can be held against even a CEO." -- NO. Just NO. If you believe something that society finds laughable or horrible (Lizard people run the world, X race is superior, Z are bad at math, the Holocaust didn't happen, etc)... and you support it out loud, with money, in public. Of COURSE it can be held against you -- you don't have a goddamn right to that job, and part of your job is to be the face of the company.
/rant
That said, once you are in the real world and you bump into your first real hard problems, the answer is often C. Need to speed up some Python, use C. Need to pour rocket fuel on your Erlang, use C. Need to run on an embedded device, use C. C tends to be low on surprises and most of them are exceptionally well documented and understood at this point. C tends to have decent libraries for whatever you need.
In certain open source communities -- you will use C because the stuff you depend on uses it. It is that simple.
I suspect the number of C developers is still relatively high, and while it won't be a primary / favorite of many -- it is the lingua franca if you will... lots of times stuff can be framed as a comparison to C, because everyone understands the context.
That all said, the syntax is godawful. It brings back so many horrors from Python, whitespace, self, ugh. The next step to make it truly awful would be have those minor whitespace errors only show themselves at runtime so writing complex applications becomes a nightmare.
Love the attitude, abhor the project.
She points out that sending a women to deal with another women is sexist. The (presumed) reasoning is that women are people, and shouldn't have be given special treatment (positive or negative).
Yet the title of her post SCREAMS "listen to me, because I am a women and for that reason my perspective deserves special treatment".
If her perspective has value because she is a women, wouldn't the wife the the founder have the EXACT same additional value of being a women.
Again, either super-clever, self-referential and meta, or dense.
You could play the super long odds, everything was AWESOME for the past two years, but just turned awful. Then she was only lying now (because "I've been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years..."). That would paint her in the absolute best light, and it IMHO, rather unrealistic.
You could even play the super-super long odds, and assume everything she said before was a lie (said it was good, it was actually awful) and then things BECAME good recently and she doubled-down on lying and said things were bad.
... in my case, it isn't an assumption. It is a expectation based on prior behavior.
It is really hard to be a newbie to the creation of physical stuff -- lots of learning. They are doing it at a decent scale to boot.
Last I checked the F# supports was still a little crufty (over a year ago) -- but if they really get the F# support to be top tier, I will have to return and have another look.