Unfortunately, I'd say a key skill for a contractor is probably reading code written by others because - at least in my experience - you're 90% of the time coming in to clean up or maintain an old mess someone else has made.
https://gavinhoward.com/2023/04/rust-is-dead-to-me/
> Rust the language is dead to me.
> why?
> Because, quite literally, the Rust Foundation wants to make people like me unwelcome in any Rust event, not just official ones.
> Don’t believe me?
> Look at the draft Rust Trademark Policy that the Rust Foundation is asking for comments on and go to page 12:
> > We will consider requests to use the Marks on a case by case basis, but at a minimum, would expect events and conferences using the Marks to…prohibit the carrying of firearms…
> I have a concealed carry permit. I have firearms and other weapons. I know how to use them, and I will use them in defense of my wife and myself.
> And you can bet I carry them into places I consider dangerous if it is legal to.
I bet there are people out there outside the US who think that you should protect your safety in a boring computer conference, but you won't ever hear about it. This notion is too fringe and people won't dare say it.
I think you missed my previous point. Angry men with guns being allowed into a boring computer conference (or anywhere else for that matter) is the reason people think they need to protect their own safety in the first place.
Can just imagine a Rust conference, and an argument breaks out over memory management, one guy starts yelling about 'borrowing', starts shooting, someone else yells "you can take my pointers out of my dead cold hands", starts shooting. Pandemonium.
I am personal'y of the opinion that brands play it too safe in general and people aren't stupid and know that just because a brand happened to be near something bad doesn't mean the brand is responsible and therefore bad, but apparently brands don't agree and they're the ones calling the shots on where they're displayed.
I don't think this follows. Historically speaking, most mass shootings have occurred at locations that specifically disallow firearms, making them "soft targets" where the cowardly attacker will not have anyone fight back. It doesn't seem logically consistent to assume that this policy item has the effect you are stating.
Most places with large crowds disallow firearms, and most mass shootings occur at places with crowds. You're confusing correlation with causation.
HN never change please.
Frankly, I think if people won't hire because of a post like this, then the interviewers are the one contributing to the problem.
Totally disagree. For the vast majority of software dev jobs (like 98% of them), you just want someone who shows up and does the work without making much of a fuss. People who openly demonstrate that they are difficult to work with are freely signaling "do not hire me, I will make your life much harder"
Why would you hire someone like that? You'd much rather have someone who is 50% as skilled but gets along with everyone and doesn't make other's lives harder because of their personality
For the vast majority of people who post stuff like that on their blog, they show up and do the work without making much of a fuss.
I know because I've worked with several of them.
And you'd have no problem with your coworkers always keeping a gun on them? This seems like a recipe for a workplace incident
But sure, the workplace will usually have a policy about guns, and that's more an HR problem than a problem for me as an interviewer. And I'd put the burden on him to enquire about that aspect.
But (depending on where you live) you'd also be surprised how many coworkers carry guns with them. At one company I was shocked. HR put a policy prohibiting concealed carry, and damn near 80% of my team took serious issue with it. It felt like I had accidentally walked into an NRA meeting or something. There were never any issues, and we tended to get into some heated arguments at that place. Turns out most gun carriers recognize and respect the gun and don't just pull it out and start shooting people every time they get offended.
Get over it, go burn a witch somewhere else in a country that doesn’t have the legal rights to it.
If you can't read code by written by others, being a (software) contractor is probably the worst job you could have. Now you need to read new code at every new client you start at.
And most times it's code that you really don't enjoy reading because it was dragged up from the slurry pits in Beelzebub's own septic tank and mangled over the years into a horrific totem, a paean to insanity, screeching out its perverted agonies the only way it knows how - through JIRA and Kanban boards containing decade-old bugs that you are asked, nay expected, to fix in your first week.
Similarly I've worked for someone who sets up a continuos integration systems.
There are contracting jobs that don't require you to read the code of others.
> Got another programming job. Got fired for "performance." I think the reason wasn’t good, but I also have a hard time building a theory of mind, which means I can’t read code written by others.
If you can't read code written by others, that's going to be a big concern for companies that require you to read and modify other people's code.
Perhaps you need to be a contractor, not an employee.