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This is the same kind of person who would write software to find anti-Islamic comments had he been born in Iran, or to hunt down dissidents if born in China. Th

• duairc 13y ago
  This is total nonsense. Reverse sexism is not a thing. Of course "bro culture" is bad, and of course female-friendly is good.
  • barry-cotter 13y ago
    And the award for utter oblivious lack of reflectivity goes to duairc. Unless they're trolling.
  • jophde 13y ago
    It's not "reverse sexism", it's just sexism. Anti "bro culture" prejudges all women on not appreciating bro culture. I know plenty of women who enjoy things from "bro culture" such as beer, sports, and not being a bore to be around.
    • monksy 13y ago
      "Bro-culture" is a descriptor of a subculture/subgroup.
• adlawson 13y ago
  I'm not really sure what point you're making with these remarks, but it does come across as rather biased. It is entirely possible that some of these "Adria-Richards-esque thought police" developers, as you call them, weren't very good, but labelling Rowan or the contributors as incompetent is just plain ignorant. My counter to your comment is that if you want to hire developers who's performance is based entirely on the lines of code shipped, then that's your prerogative. I, on the other hand, prefer to hire developers who can think for themselves, who have the motivation to be creative with their work, and who like to involve themselves in other projects.
• tommorris 13y ago
  > he loves the rush of feeling holier-than-thou Or perhaps he just doesn't want to work with douchebags.
  • temphn 13y ago
    I'm sure he doesn't. Just as I'm sure we don't want to work with religious fanatics. Go forth ye neo-Puritans and build a startup without a competitive environment, where no one can curse or drink beer and must be "professional" at all times. I'm sure you'll set the world on fire!
    • caseydurfee 13y ago
      Provo, Utah is a hotbed for startups despite being made up of at least 90% people who don't curse or drink beer. There's your counterexample. What's with the "we"? Are you attempting to speak for developers as a whole? Thing is, I've never met a great developer who gave a crap about a coworker's religion, political beliefs, whether they drink or not, etc. I've met plenty of mediocre ones who do.
      • temphn 13y ago
        Well, it looks like the mediocre developer's qualities are on display in this tool, as Rowan Manning sure seems to care a great deal about whether you drink beer or not. We are talking about the kind of person who thinks "cutting edge" in a job description is a "fail" because it sets a competitive expectation.
        • tommorris 13y ago
          There's a difference between drinking beer at work and actively advertising that this forms part of your "culture" at work. The company I contract for has a bar in the office and has had beer in the fridge on Fridays for the last few months. This is not something they put in their job adverts.
• kapowaz 13y ago
  > "bro culture" is bad, but female-friendly (like Minted.com[1]) is assumed to be good. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. You're confusing a non-discrimination policy with a positive-discrimination policy.
  • jophde 13y ago
    So who decides what is positive-discrimination policy?
    • kapowaz 13y ago
      Nobody ‘decides’; it isn't subjective. If you're discriminating by giving an advantage to a minority when hiring in the interests of boosting the numbers of said minority, then that is positive discrimination. My comment wasn't meant to state any personal opinion of this practice, but to highlight it as being entirely different from choosing to have a work environment in which discrimination (e.g. sexism, as is assumed to be the case with ‘bro-culture’) is not tolerated.
• anu_gupta 13y ago
  You're joking right? I laughed the whole way through, and I'm hoping this really was meant to be funny.
• king_jester 13y ago
  > This is the same kind of person who would write software to find anti-Islamic comments had he been born in Iran, or to hunt down dissidents if born in China. The kind of person who reflexively genuflects towards the current state-sponsored ideology, whatever it is (quick test: is Obama on your side?), because he loves the rush of feeling holier-than-thou. Ah yes, someone who writes a simple tool to check for red flags and warnings common in job postings for their industry is totally a fascist looking to hunt down fellow citizens for the state. > As an example, the lint checks that "bro culture" is bad, but female-friendly (like Minted.com[1]) is assumed to be good. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Very predictable. Bro culture is bad, it implies the people working and doing the hiring are looking for a very narrow type of person and aren't really open to having different kinds of people employed. Further, being woman-friendly is a huge plus, because usually that means women are able to access leadership roles in various capacities, something that isn't common in our industry. Unless, of course, you think that companies that actively look to correct that imbalance are the problem, in which case I would pose that you are the problem. > Like any neo-Puritan, he then comes after profanity, and beer, and even (god forbid) competitive-sounding job descriptions! His vision of the startup future: an HR drone stamping on a programmer's face, forever. Some people don't like profanity in the workplace or highly competitive environments, those people have a right to know that info up front when looking at job descriptions. Nobody is forcing anyone to use this tool, there is no censorship being applied here. Moreover, mentions of beer and alcohol in a job post are highly suspect, as such posts will automatically exclude people who don't drink or are alcoholics. These types of places often base social activity around drinking and that can be highly alienating to a wide variety of people. > People like this will spend their time being Adria-Richards-esque thought police rather than shipping code. Contrast with Max Levchin, who actually sold a startup for a billion-plus dollars: Ah yes, because calling people out on dick jokes at a professional conference is exactly like the thought police. Also, that Max Levnchin has made money off of creating mono-culture workplaces doesn't mean that is appropriate or correct for every company or potential employee. > If you want to work in an environment full of rowanmannings, that is your prerogative. Many others will select out and find places where people who enjoy bullying others with modern taboos on gender and the like don't self-appoint themselves as priests. Do you really want a team member who spends their free time getting people to upvote their new heretic-finding software to the top of HN? If you are selecting jobs based on those companies that will tolerate your sexism and delusions of oppression, remind me to never work anywhere you have, ever.
• spamizbad 13y ago
  Given your sympathies to Levchin's views, I'm surprised you're opposed to tools like this. How does one accept rigid cultural conformity inside an organization while rejecting employee-side culture fit analysis tools? If culture fit is a major requirement, and your company has a "bro culture" you obviously don't want to hire, or even waste your time interviewing, anyone who dislikes "bro culture." And I'm curious as to why you (or anyone) should feel this tool is different than all of the other methods employees use to weed out employers: salary, benefits, location, job role, technologies used, company reputation, etc. This tool simply adds "culture fit" to that list.
• awkward 13y ago
  Seriously? Do you think a few ninja bros cranking out vbscript in Dreamweaver for 80 hours a week are going to set the world on fire? Whatever contrarian political angle you want to take on this, the primary use is for programmers to avoid being taken for a ride.
• steven777400 13y ago
  It's common in software for us developers to create tools to "scratch our own itches". In this instance, the author might just not personally appreciate those kind of work cultures. This does not imply a fascist desire to exterminate brogrammer culture or any other culture. For myself, I would not want to work at a place that advertised pingpong, beer, or pizza, because to me, those imply both a homogeneous age (young) and a desire for long hours at the office. As I get older, I prefer to eat more healthy (haha I wish) and limit my working hours to spend time on the people that matter. I prefer to work cooperatively with my colleagues, not competitively. A positive, supportive working environment is very important to me. If people are swearing at each other, that's a huge red flag. That doesn't mean that the kinds of work environments are intrinsically bad. For some people, they would be perfect! But if I'm looking for a job, I know up front, they're not for me. But that's why I work for the government instead of for a startup. :)
  • mseebach 13y ago
    The "fascist" element (I wouldn't have used that word, it's incendiary and counter-productive) is the undercurrent of an objective truth and the discounting of preferences (and, not least, the holders of such preferences) not in line with that truth. If this tool had been written and "marketed" as a personal linter, in which you can taylor your own preferences, it would have been great. It could have had a pre-set "bro" profile that "fails" the lack of beer pong and a "cube" profile that fails mentions of any technology released in the past 15 years. That would have been both hilarious and actually useful.
    • mejarc 13y ago
      You can fork the repo to make your own.
      • mseebach 13y ago
        I can indeed. Unfortunately, that fact is completely unrelated to the discussion.
• asveikau 13y ago
  I like how one random person writes a lighthearted script and suddenly Barack Obama and Adria Richards are teaming up to turn us into Iran or communist China. It's a shame Hugo Chavez is dead because he would make an excellent addition to the team.
  • tommorris 13y ago
    It's the war for Western civilisation and it will be fought over the presence of beer and pizza in the office.
• johnnyforeigner 13y ago
  >If you want to work in an environment full of rowanmannings, that is your prerogative I have worked in an environment with one rowanmanning in it. It was awesome. A more open-minded, funny, smart and generous guy you couldn't hope to meet. More to the point, he was one of the best coders any of us had ever worked with. A company full of rowanmannings would therefore be a chilled out place where we'd learn from each other while having a laugh and turning out enough quality code to crush an army of pizza-fuelled dinosaur brogrammers waving their false-victimhood like a banner.
  • temphn 13y ago
    Huh? Nature Publishing Group, where Rowan Manning works, makes its profit margins from extorting scientific libraries rather than superior code. http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2010/06/boycotting_the_nature_publishi.html http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2010/06/boycotting_the_n... Boycotting the Nature Publishing Group The Nature Publishing Group publishes not only the prestigious journal Nature, but also many others. When this company bought Scientific American, it raised the institutional subscription price seven-fold. Now they are insisting on quadrupling the fees for 67 journals to which the University of California subscribes. Right now, we pay them an average of $4,465 per year for each journal we subscribe to. After the increase, this would soar to $17,479 per year. In response, the University of California is considering a system-wide boycott of the Nature Publishing Group — for example, cancelling subscriptions to all their journals. Rowan Manning works for a gang of monopolistic rent-seekers who currently have the scientific community over a barrel. His salary comes from a closed-access model which is soon to be obsolete. Thus "cutting-edge" technology is actually highlighted as a fail! https://github.com/rowanmanning/joblint/blob/master/lib/rule/expectations.js#L6 https://github.com/rowanmanning/joblint/blob/master/lib/rule...
    • aclevernickname 13y ago
      Beautiful. Thank you for this reply.