And that online repo is fully complex and developed. And has a stable release, isn't a work in progress. That code you hacked together in a couple hours to solve a quick problem isn't going to be an indication of how you handle a mature project with multiple developers.

>I think this is quite a discriminating practice - what if i don't do public projects?

Then either start one or resign yourself to not getting the best possible tech jobs out there?

As a discriminatory practice it's probably one of the most benign. There's a low bar to putting open source code out there. You can write a simple project and put it out there in a couple of weekends. That alone puts you ahead of about 80% of candidates.

It's a way better discriminatory practice than the current default assumption that the best developers out there are white, male twenty-somethings.

The bar is not necessarily as low as you think. At companies like Amazon you have to get approval for even the simplest personal projects, which could take months if you're unlucky.

> default assumption that the best developers out there are white, male twenty-somethings.

don't you think that there's a higher proportion of white, twenty-something people who would have public projects (because they tend to have the most spare time)?

Don't you think that the over-worked CRUD programmer at an obscure insurance company wanting to get out because they are in a difficult situation (may be financially, may be race/background etc), would find it hard to have time for a public showing of their coding prowess?

No one is saying don't use public projects, but i would only consider them after other aspects, and certainly wouldn't cull people because of it.

>Don't you think that the over-worked CRUD programmer at an obscure insurance company wanting to get out because they are in a difficult situation (may be financially, may be race/background etc), would find it hard to have time for a public showing of their coding prowess?

Like I said: the amount of time you realistically need to get something out there is about a couple of weekends.

Generally speaking, I preferentially hire developers with public projects--though I do not just pick one at random and ask for one they're particularly proud of. I think open source development is virtuous and is something that I want to promote and encourage; in the process, I get what I think is a better view into how somebody works.

If you don't do public projects, then you start a few steps behind the other candidates. This isn't insurmountable, but the error bars are wider, making you a somewhat greater risk.

You are probably going to miss hiring a real lot of excellent candidates with that attitude.

> I think open source development is virtuous and is something that I want to promote and encourage

Then pay them for it.

Only in the weirdly defensive world of Hacker News does preferring people who contribute to open source software imply throwing out resumes without it, does it imply "missing out" on those people. Of course I consider resumes without open source work. It would be stupid to not do so. But I will look first at those with a publicly auditable track record. Is that a surprise? I look, earlier in the list, at people who've worked at a number of large firms with strong technical teams, too. They shrink the error bars on hiring.

Though, even if it didn't mean I was getting a view into how they actually work, I'm okay with preferring public-minded people who give things back and make the world a better place through it. I try very hard to live by the motto "pay it forward" and I find it to be rewarding and pleasant to work with those who do likewise.

> Then pay them for it.

My last two employers did exactly that. Should I need to hire directly for my consulting adventures, I'll do it there, too. I mean, this reply makes no sense to me: why would I not?