mrcold's comments

Why though? There are zero reasons and guarantees that the company hosting it isn't data-mining your emails. It's just like free email, but you pay for it.

With your own server, it costs way less and you control everything.

The same reason the concept of "street smart" exists. People don't want to accept when they are being stupid.

Each an every one of us can clearly identify talent as the ability to do or create amazing things. But because people want to feel special, they twist and turn their perspective until they become special to themselves. "Intelligent? Well, you didn't make billions, so it must mean you're dumb. Athletic? Well, you didn't score that touchdown, so I could probably outrun you. Good at programming? Please. I could whip up a better solution in minutes if I wanted to learn programming."

It's basic politics. Skewing reality with faulty logic in order to gain something. Usually feeling good about yourself.

Not likely. Currently it's just guerrilla tactics from Salesforce. They want to increase stock prices and let everybody know they are willing to sell.

Most of them do it because everybody else is doing it. Every time some poor soul gets tasked with interviewing candidates, he just fires up a google search to find good interview questions. He reads about puzzles, fizzbuzz and "analyzing your candidate's though process". And with nothing else in sight, he accepts them as the golden standard.

The best part is that each and every one of these interviewers thinks they're special. Like they are somehow clever and intelligent by asking this type of questions. They don't even realize that they are using the same lazy approach everybody else is taking.

The truth is, tech interviews revolve around your interviewer. How you make HIM feel. I've seen idiots get hired because they were enthusiastic. And extremely intelligent people rejected because "they couldn't communicate the way I like it".

So in an interview forget about your skills, experience and anything else related to the job. It doesn't matter. Just woo the person across the table and you will get an offer. This works most of the time for shitty companies with lazy interviewers. And that's most of them.

Personally, I found that that companies that allow this type of interviewing behavior will overwork and underpay you. Because they don't care. They just want to push things out to make a quick buck. If you want to be treated like an expert that has a brain in his skull, avoid them completely.

Instead, find the companies that trust your experience. That act like you're as good as you say. And just make a quick check to see if you know what you're talking about. They are rare and most of them are startups. But the higher pay and better work environment is completely worth it.

Start your own business while collecting a paycheck. Build what you want, how you want it. Software, cars, food. Doesn't matter. Just do it how you feel like doing it. Once you taste the freedom of creating quality instead of just shipping something, you will never go back.

- "dragged down by work requests"

- "ceased all communications with freelance clients"

- "Not having to participate in the death throes of a company I did not have any stake in"

Sounds like demanding children to me. Maybe I should have used the professional terms: bad managers and bad clients.

You can't really communicate with children. I agree with yetanotheracc. Getting up and leaving is the most sane approach with the least stress,

I've been wanting something like this for a while. But it looks like your implementation is not that great.

- Using your real identity is an extremely bad idea. Write something stupid once and it will haunt you forever. People will speak their mind only when protected by anonymity.

- The topics and replies seem pretentious. Most likely because of the real identity thing. Everybody just tries to sound smart, eloquent and philosophical.

- Unless you have some truly smart people initiating ideas and discussions, it's just the topic of the day kind of thing. It gets boring pretty fast.

Choose a job you love and you will find reasons to hate it.

This "work for fun, not money" mantra is only promoted by businesses and art people that can make a living. For everybody else, it's a nightmare. Working for fun is still working. And at some point you're going to get tired. Your boss is the only one who profits from your passion. And you get burned out without an escape route.

Keep your passions to yourself. Work a job you hate. This is the only way to lead a healthy and successful life.

- Work on becoming self-suficient. Don't rely on a job.

- Jobs are just a means to an end. Not the main part of your life.

- Stress is never worth the moments of happiness it creates. Hard work is.

- Put yourself through hell. You will find out who you are and what you want.

- Don't trust the media or mainstream thinking. They're in it for the money.

- Most people are emotional. If you use logic and reason, you will fail miserably.

Except we are talking about the English language. And it does have rules, they are called grammar. Plus, you're using the bandwagon fallacy. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't make it right.

SQL is an initialism for Structured Query Language. So the correct pronunciation is "s-q-l". Acronyms have a natural flow and can be read as is (NASA, LASER etc.). Initialisms do not and must be read one letter at a time.

Grammar. It's magic.

Read this type of threads or reddit's /r/programming. The number of interviewers claiming "it's a simple 5 minutes problem" is disheartening. People get bored easily. Especially when they already know the solution.

Quick question. How often do you solve Fibonacci in your production code? It doesn't seem like a problem a software business would encounter very often. And if it's not encountered on the job, I don't really see why it's asked during a job interview.

By the way, I failed my very first interview just like the guy you talked about. Complete brain freeze. Luckily, I got an internship and here I am with 7 years of software development under my belt. You probably might not care. But it really makes me wonder about all that wasted potential. Not everybody is as lucky as me.

I did a code project as a test once. Mostly out of desperation to find a job quickly. And it taught me to refuse and ignore any work-at-home tests, no matter what they are. Either you look me in the eye and we talk like men about software development. Or you play alone with your tests and quizzes until you find someone desperate enough to care.

Why I don't do code tests:

- Artificial problems with artificial constraints. I have to understand some weird context you dreamed up and figure out a solution that matches your expectations. Give me real world problems. I don't work in la la land.

- Solving your test takes at least a couple of hours. I can send three more resumes in that time. Or I can start hacking together a side project to compete with your company. I don't waste my time and neither should you.

- Skewed expectations. Your test is prepared in advance. And because you already know the solution, it seems easy. But it's not. Want a real test? Let's try one you haven't seen before side by side. We'll see then if I'm good and if you are as competent as you think you are. But if I figure it out before you do, I expect a salary higher than yours. Not so fun anymore, is it.

- Skilled people don't need tests to determine skill. They assume it's there and look for potential problems. If I built at least one side-project and you can see it, don't treat me like someone that can't code. If I have 7 years experience, don't test my coding skills like I'm a graduate. Because the 3-5 guys that hired me before you did that already. And they found me good enough to hire.

Show respect to your candidates. Treat them like they are as good as they claim, and look for discrepancies subtly. Don't assume everyone is an incompetent liar. And definitely don't test the living shit out of them just to prove yourself right or wrong.

You ask for 3 years experience in building software. That's not someone at the beginning of his career, it's mid-level. And a quick google search shows that the average for C# developers in Dublin is €45,000. So your competitive salary is actually below the market.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

You touched the exact reason I don't use stackoverflow careers. Everybody there expects higher quality developers and all of them offer a "competitive salary". Why would I waste my time applying.

If you want better quality, offer something better in return. Offer an amazing salary. Double the market. Triple. Fuck it, a truckload of money and 72 new virgins every day. Something that justifies your increased demands and expectations. Until then, the traditional route works better for me too. Because I get the exact same "competitive offer", but employer expectations are normal instead of stupid.

The lack of positive comments would work great. Because the people posting jobs would get feedback from their target audience. Currently employers just post a lot of jobs and are left wondering why they can't find skilled people. They would know if we were allowed to tell them.

Caffeine makes me impatient and neurotic. So I drink non-caffeinated tea instead.

Sugar demolishes me. I'm useless on a sugar high. I compensate with fiber and fat so I can use the energy.

Alcohol, I hate how it makes me feel. Angry and uninterested in actual work. I only drink a beer or two when forced to socialize with drinkers.

I feel that the best code comes out when I'm mellow, but with just enough energy. Too much or too little usually leads to not wanting to do anything related to programming. I guess it's just about keeping things balanced.

Particle physics. Simulate air movement, the weather, chemical reactions etc.