I think someone can be very passionate about coding and still only do it 9-5. Being passionate about your job, loving what you are doing, taking pride in it, and committing to building an excellent product doesn't mean you can't ever do anything else.
I've tried very hard at some things and failed miserably. I've tired hard at some things and had great results that surprised even me. Those are facts.
It is correct that I can't do things that I don't have the ability to do. There's plenty of things people can't do but that doesn't mean everything someone can't do can't be learned. I can't run a 10k but I'm sure I can if I wanted to, tried, and trained for one I could. There was a time I couldn't write a line of code but that didn't stop me from learning or trying.
I believe many people have something or another that is extremely difficult to impossible for them to learn no matter how hard they try and its different for everyone. Most people don't have an interest in trying things that don't come naturally to them so many times people don't experience that so they can't imagine someone else experiencing it.
I actually never tried to play the piano, just the flute and later percussion.
>For classically pianists, it just means you can read notes and play the corresponding notes
Couldn't do that. Couldn't read notes, not even very simple pieces. Reading which note was what, them and then thinking about the corresponding fingering, doing it while following along with the beat... nope, never happened. It wasn't like I didn't practice either, I did. I was so so so determined to be able to make music, it was something I wanted bad, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't, my mind didn't work that way. I had the mental capacity to remember how to play only a couple of notes at one time. I then went to trying to play the drums since there was no remembering which fingers go where. That, while a little easier, didn't work either. I couldn't keep up with the proper timing of the notes.
You could just say I had terrible teachers (public school) but I don't believe that. I gave up after years of trying, it wasn't like I had a mental block to learning. I practiced on my own time too.
I also was unable to ever learn my multiplication tables.
I am not stupid though. I don't have a learning disability, I got great grades in school. I write software for a living. I have a lot of intellectual hobbies. I love talking about math and probability with friends. Nobody who knows me would tell you I am stupid.
I've also seen people struggle just as bad with stuff that comes naturally to me, so I understand some people's brains are just wired differently.
>Most of the 'bad' programmers many of us come into contact with are just farther behind on their journey to being great software developers, and may only be as bad as they are because of fear to ask questions and be judged by those who think there are only 2 types of programmers.
In my experience I'm not so sure about that. I've meet (and worked with!) bad programmers very much my senior. After working with them I know why they are bad - they don't learn. Even with asking tons of questions and having their work critiqued constructively. I don't know why this is but I've observed it a few times. It seems some small subset of people, no matter how much they do something just don't get better at it. They spend 20-30 years writing software like an amateur who just learning. Someone I know said about this - "experience isn't a measure of time spent doing something."
Is there a belief that anyone can learn to play the piano? I can't. I struggled for many years trying to learn various instruments. I failed miserably no matter how hard I tried. I tried and I tried, I really wanted to be able to play an instrument, any instrument, but I was unable to. I'm not dumb, I am a programmer, but music was just something my brain couldn't comprehend.
Of course we also have to define what exactly is "able to play the piano" and what is "able to program"? If know how to write "hello world" does that mean I know how to program? If I play a couple cords does that mean I know how to play the piano?
>You have to do a complete change of the engine lubricant how often?
Usually not very often. I only need to do it once every 10,000 miles. There is a widely held myth that you must do it more often but its just that - a myth. Modern cars can go very long time without an oil change, check the owner's manual for your car to know how long.
I don't believe you are painting a clear picture of the average person's "mental block." Most people I know would love to own a EV but they "aren't there yet" for most people I know.
I drive very little on a day to day basis. Very very little. That's great for someone who only needs to drive to work and run errands in town. (Me). I pretty much never leave town day-to-day. The big issue is I make a lot of road trips around the East Coast on the weekends - so I need my car to have a very long range once in a while and I make enough road trips were it isn't economically feasible to rent a long range car once a month (or so) for that. It also isn't economically feasible to buy a second vehicle and pay all the ownership costs of that. My spouse and I carpool, we both work in town and it makes sense economically and ecologically to only own one car. The minor inconvenience of it is more than worth it. If I were to get an EV I'd have to also buy a second car.
Seriously, I would love to own an EV - absolutely love to.
Plus many people live in apartments and park on public streets.
Cost to operate the vehicle (gas) isn't the whole story. How much do these vehicles cost to insure and is it comparable with a gas car at a similar price point? (Not being snarky, just curious)
I remember "hot-linking" was a big problem in the 1990s web.
Also one time a myspace template linked to pictures on some guys website and became really popular. He decided to goatse the myspace profiles who were hot-linking his photos.
I am a Java dev and don't use VS and things basically work "out of the box" for me. I used to be a big "Linux is the best dev env" kinda person but I've changed my mind since I started doing Window's development - it really is just as easy - for the stuff I do.
The law doesn't say "you can't ask candidates for their photo" it says "you can't discriminate based on race/gender/pregnancy status/ethnicity/age (>40)/national origin in hiring practices."
If you are soliciting or encouraging photos of someone for a software job it looks suspicious - why would you need to know what a candidate looks like when looks aren't part of how well you can write software? Then you start looking like you plan to discriminate. The idea is not to solicit photos of candidates when their looks are irrelevant to the position. One HR policy may say "don't accept resume with photos so it doesn't look like we encourage all candidates to send them." Note: that isn't law but it could be company policy to protect them. Where the line is drawn probably varies by company and is probably arbitrary. Linking to your GitHub that happens to also contain your photo is probably not a big deal to anyone. Having an online resume where half the screen is taken up by your picture is different, it is no different than a paper resume that has your smiling face in the corner. I don't use GitHub (I don't have the time - I'm too old) but I understand it to be a more "social" and "casual" atmosphere which a photo is acceptable while a resume is a "professional" document that might also link to a more "casual" document.
The "rule of thumb" of not including your photo with a resume is because it is irrelevant to your job qualifications and was previously used to openly discriminate. This is a big deal since people here at HN have shared their stories of discrimination based on age - would someone who is aging an a little over weight want to dedicate half a computer screen to their picture?
Companies may just request that any information sent to them doesn't include a photo - this is a reasonable request. With this request they have covered their legal basis of saying "we aren't judging your resume based on how you look" but also might not throw out something that gives away your looks.
I review resumes and have a say in hiring decisions in my company. I would probably have a tendency to disregard this resume because of the picture. It is pretty distracting and frankly makes me uncomfortable. I don't wish to evaluate a candidate based on their looks but this one says "my looks are important to my job qualifications." Perhaps I'm old fashion and this is over the top but it just rubs me the wrong way and I feel the "type" of candidate who includes a picture like that isn't the "type" of candidate I'd like to have on my team. It comes off to me as narcissistic.
Perhaps the younger, hipper crowd appreciates this sort of thing - if you are going for that type of work. Long established companies might pass this one up.
I might be completely out in left field here though.
I don't believe it is out of date. The reason is the resume is the first impression of you - someone has to make a 60 second choice to look into you further - to call you or Google you. If you include a photo you are asking the company to evaluate your looks as part of the initial resume which have zero to do with your job qualifications. (we are talking about software here)
Like it or not employers make snap judgements without consciously thinking about it based on irrelevant characteristics. We know people with black sounding names get callbacks significantly less than white sounding names.[1] I can't imagine how much more difficult someone who was a dark skinned black would have it if they included a photo. Remember - employers give a resume a once over and their unconscious bias in in effect.
No hiring manager or HR person will tell you they are openly racist or disregard candidates based on their name - and they aren't lying! They just do it because social biases effect their evaluation without them realizing it. As much as we love to believe we are rational beings in a lot of ways we are not.
Also the reason why employers asked for a photo in a resume in the olden days was to openly discriminate against candidates. They didn't want to waste their time interviewing or following up with someone who is black, Hispanic, ugly[2], or a woman when they were seeking a white male. Their resume would just be discarded. Now that sort of discrimination is illegal in hiring so they stopped soliciting photos because they stopped (openly) taking that sort of information into consideration. Since your looks are irrelevant to the job they will often throw out resumes that contain photos so they aren't accused of taking looks into account when reviewing resumes.
Generally speaking in the US unpaid internships are illegal (for for profit companies) if the employee is doing real work that brings business value to the company.... The DOL has a six point test to see if an employee needs to be paid:
>My 99 Prizm key would work for most all other Chevy Prizm cars. I know that this "cross keying" would work on quite a few different brands and models as well.
Back in the later 80s my parents had a Toyota van. One day my mom accidentally started it with her house key. We then realized that pretty much anything that fit partway into the ignition started it. Many years later the key got lost and we kept a screw driver in the cup holder to start it. It was a little odd driving around without a key in the ignition.... always thought cops would get suspicious.