[temphn]

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.

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. 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.

So how about thoughtlint? Avoid hiring rowanmanning, or anyone on their helpfully provided list:

https://github.com/rowanmanning/joblint#thanks

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:

http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...

  Max Levchin:  The notion that diversity in an early team is 
  important or good is completely wrong. You should try to 
  make the early team as non-diverse as possible. There are a   
  few reasons for this. The most salient is that, as a 
  startup, you’re underfunded and undermanned. It’s a big 
  disadvantage; not only are you probably getting into 
  trouble, but you don’t even know what trouble that may be. 
  Speed is your only weapon. All you have is speed. 

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?

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-particular-things-Minted-...

[steven777400]

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]

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]

You can fork the repo to make your own.

[mseebach]

I can indeed. Unfortunately, that fact is completely unrelated to the discussion.

[johnnyforeigner]

>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]

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_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...

[aclevernickname]

Beautiful. Thank you for this reply.

[tommorris]

> he loves the rush of feeling holier-than-thou

Or perhaps he just doesn't want to work with douchebags.

[temphn]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[spamizbad]

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.

[adlawson]

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.

[duairc]

This is total nonsense. Reverse sexism is not a thing. Of course "bro culture" is bad, and of course female-friendly is good.

[jophde]

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]

"Bro-culture" is a descriptor of a subculture/subgroup.

[barry-cotter]

And the award for utter oblivious lack of reflectivity goes to duairc. Unless they're trolling.

[kapowaz]

> "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]

So who decides what is positive-discrimination policy?

[kapowaz]

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.

[asveikau]

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]

It's the war for Western civilisation and it will be fought over the presence of beer and pizza in the office.

[anu_gupta]

You're joking right? I laughed the whole way through, and I'm hoping this really was meant to be funny.

[king_jester]

> 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.

[nailer]

> 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.

I'm not the OP, but I think it's as unethical to be biased towards any group. A company should do it's best to ignore gender and focus on merit. Companies that 'actively look to correct that imbalance' make things worse and reinforce stereotypes with token hires.

> Ah yes, because calling people out on dick jokes at a professional conference is exactly like the thought police.

Starting a Twitter vendetta rather than approaching people who made a schoolyard joke http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/25/adria-richards-fi... makes things worse, not better.

[johrn]

> Companies that 'actively look to correct that imbalance' make things worse and reinforce stereotypes with token hires.

Looking to correct the balance doesn't mean having some sort of quota for hiring women. It means getting rid of the bias that exists already, not tilting the scales in the other direction.

[jluster]

(note, I am an alcoholic, I'd have to eat my five year chip if I lapsed)

As much as I agree with everything else in this response, the "offering alcohol excludes recovering alcoholics and non-drinkers" is a non-starter. Offering vegan meals or vegetarian meals for those with such disposition is not excluding meat eaters like me, offering meat is not excluding vegans and vegetarians unless some office drone will force those things down the respective person's throat.

We're alcoholics, not children. We live our lives around people who can responsibly and sensibly drink (and some who can't). Adding a few bottles of beer into the workplace on Friday is much, much, less an issue than drinks during festivities, the fact that most weekends start and end in bars, or that "just one sip" is a family mantra.

We're dealing with all those, we can deal with some beer in the office on Fridays. We manage to be part of society, social and professional circles, and have romantic, social, and professional relationships despite not lifting the stein, what makes you think we're that weak when it comes to Fridays at work?

[temphn]

> is totally a fascist looking to hunt down fellow citizens for the state.

That is exactly what it is.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/

[awkward]

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.