Ask HN: Professional Hacker's Web Presence?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827294

by techbio • 16 years ago

22 45 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What sites are key for the professional hacker? What is your public face?

How do you evaluate a candidate professional for employ/contract/partner/supplier online?

superk4• 16 years ago

Edit: Ok, that's a little bit of a loaded question. Key to the professional hacker / public face: blog, github / google code, twitter and activity in forums (like HN).

How to evaluate a potential employee / contract.. the above, plus LinkedIn, CV / references, portfolio and social networks (if they aren't careful with permissions).

Supplier.. google, twitter (#good / #bad tweets) and credibility of web site.

Partner.. lot's of face-to-face time.

techbio11• 16 years ago

Loaded? As in the answer is obvious because of how it was asked? I don't mean it that way.

I am curious if there is a combination of online attributes that will generally form a proxy for professionalism.

superk4• 16 years ago

Sorry... I meant because the two sentences weren't entirely related.

angusgr7• 16 years ago

I think that the answer to the first part of your question ("public face") depends on a lot on the choice offered in the second part "employ/contract/partner/supplier".

Also, to a lesser extent, on the kind of work you're talking about (startup hacker, co-founder, web programmer, systems programmer, open source hacker, IT dogsbody?).

Can you be more specific? Assuming the question is for your benefit, what are you looking to be? If the question is for your own analysis, who are you looking to hire/partner/contract to?

techbio11• 16 years ago

Lets say your boss gives you a list of ten name/email address pairs every morning at 10:00, and you have to give him a list of the three most professional candidates, in order, by 11 because your competition will hire them or something.

What script/Google search query/yahoo pipe/metrics could you use to automate this task?

angusgr7• 16 years ago

I'd say that this is still meaningless without context. Who is your boss? Who are you? Who are the potential hires for? Where did the names come from in the first place?

If I'm reading your reply correctly, you're actually looking to write an algorithm for an automated "find-a-hacker" engine?

In which case, I'd say the first bar to surpass is from another comment here - the guy who said his website is pretty crummy but it comes up first when you google "PHP programmer edinburgh"

nathanielksmith• 16 years ago

github (or something similar, but only if used heavily) is the most paramount, I'd say.

By looking at a well-used github (/gitorius/bitbucket...) account you can evaluate someone's: - communication skills - code quality - areas of expertise - creativity - ability to see things through to the end

lolname6• 16 years ago

Do you refrain from hiring anybody without a github account?

superk4• 16 years ago

If it were an employer's market you could probably get away with that.

user24• 16 years ago

I publish a lot on my personal blog ( http://www.puremango.co.uk ). Other than that it's twitter, reddit and HN. I do have linkedin but I don't really use it at all.

I invite employers to read over my blog posts and my CV which I put online ( http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/ ).

That's about it really. If I don't want something associated with me, I try not to do it really...

techbio11• 16 years ago

The Eric Schmidt Solution to web archives?

http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-...

TamDenholm• 16 years ago

I'm a web dev so obviously i've got a website. Its very neglected but it still ranks in google for "Edinburgh PHP Developer" which is exactly the people i'm after so its fine for now.

lsc9• 16 years ago

depends on what kind of hacker. for a unix greybeard, it's all about the mailing lists. I'd be very suspicious of any applicant for a high level open-source *NIX job who doesn't show up on mailing lists.

dinkumthinkum3• 16 years ago

Why, exactly?

angusgr7• 16 years ago

I think because that's where the bulk of the community is for "greybeard unix open source" technology.

The generalised answer, I would think, is "be visible or at least present in the online community that exists around your chosen technologies".

(I didn't post the parent reply, but I did upvote it!)

Ask HN: Professional Hacker's Web Presence?

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