My journey from high school to a feature in Forbes (thanks to you)(mxstbr.blog)
mxstbr.blog
My journey from high school to a feature in Forbes (thanks to you)
http://mxstbr.blog/2016/12/a-dream-come-true/
69 comments
> I tried (again) to study Computer Science at the local technical university, but my joy of programming was (and still is) sadly not accompanied by a joy for converting numbers from the binary to the decimal system and back (much to the dismay of my parents).
As a teacher on a local technical university, I completely understand what you're talking about here. However, the purpose of technical universities is to teach broads concepts on computer science (or computer engineering). Therefore, we have to start somewhere, building from basic concepts such as the need for digital "codification" up to the dozens or hundreds of concepts which will provide students with a better understanding of the field.
In your case, you pretty much decided that you would want to do frontend web development, so you made a choice. Where I teach, students only have one course which they will ever learn about html/css/js, and on a very basic level (there's a lot of information to fit into 3 years!). Assuming that most technical universities are like this, I think you made a good choice for you. However, if someday you decide to switch to backend development, making your way down the stack for DBs, or eventually up the stack for higher-level things, such as data analysis, ML, etc., you may probably find difficulties related to the lack of breadth on your understanding of the field.
All in all, just to say that you made a good choice for you, but that technical universities can provide students with a breadth of information which allows students someday, after some years of experience, to grok the similarities between most CS subfields..
As a teacher on a local technical university, I completely understand what you're talking about here. However, the purpose of technical universities is to teach broads concepts on computer science (or computer engineering). Therefore, we have to start somewhere, building from basic concepts such as the need for digital "codification" up to the dozens or hundreds of concepts which will provide students with a better understanding of the field.
In your case, you pretty much decided that you would want to do frontend web development, so you made a choice. Where I teach, students only have one course which they will ever learn about html/css/js, and on a very basic level (there's a lot of information to fit into 3 years!). Assuming that most technical universities are like this, I think you made a good choice for you. However, if someday you decide to switch to backend development, making your way down the stack for DBs, or eventually up the stack for higher-level things, such as data analysis, ML, etc., you may probably find difficulties related to the lack of breadth on your understanding of the field.
All in all, just to say that you made a good choice for you, but that technical universities can provide students with a breadth of information which allows students someday, after some years of experience, to grok the similarities between most CS subfields..
"the purpose of technical universities is to teach broads concepts on computer science"
Which might be a fine way to teach in those nations where college is free, but even there, ignoring the interests of the student, and sticking with a standard canon of course work, undercuts the uniqueness of each student.
And in those nations where college is not free, then the cost of spending time on broad topics needs to be balanced with the student's ability to pay for it.
The style of teaching that you describe is criticized by Paulo Freire in his book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".
"In the book Freire calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model" because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. However, he argues for pedagogy to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed
This is a model of teaching that can work well if the student is affluent enough that they don't have to worry about money for several years, but it is a style of teaching that really breaks down for 2 important groups:
1.) adults who need to learn a new skill
2.) just about everyone who lives in a poor country
Freire developed his ideas while he was teaching adults to read and write.
There is a teaching style that caters more to the full circumstances of the students, taking into account their age and their economic situation and their interests, so that the teaching empowers them with knowledge, without also disempowering them in other ways (such as crushing them with debt).
Which might be a fine way to teach in those nations where college is free, but even there, ignoring the interests of the student, and sticking with a standard canon of course work, undercuts the uniqueness of each student.
And in those nations where college is not free, then the cost of spending time on broad topics needs to be balanced with the student's ability to pay for it.
The style of teaching that you describe is criticized by Paulo Freire in his book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".
"In the book Freire calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model" because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. However, he argues for pedagogy to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed
This is a model of teaching that can work well if the student is affluent enough that they don't have to worry about money for several years, but it is a style of teaching that really breaks down for 2 important groups:
1.) adults who need to learn a new skill
2.) just about everyone who lives in a poor country
Freire developed his ideas while he was teaching adults to read and write.
There is a teaching style that caters more to the full circumstances of the students, taking into account their age and their economic situation and their interests, so that the teaching empowers them with knowledge, without also disempowering them in other ways (such as crushing them with debt).
> Which might be a fine way to teach in those nations where college is free, but even there, ignoring the interests of the student, and sticking with a standard canon of course work, undercuts the uniqueness of each student.
Public college here and throughout most Europe is almost free and most students attenting public universities do not incur much debt (if any at all). That is a trap that you have set up for yourselves (assuming you're from the US).
Nevertheless, every student (computer engineering, that is) can chose is own courses, so, they can follow their own interests. We just make sure that each student starts from a good technical point so he can be a "true" engineer (as in having an engineering degree).
> There is a teaching style that caters more to the full circumstances of the students, taking into account their age and their economic situation and their interests, so that the teaching empowers them with knowledge, without also disempowering them in other ways (such as crushing them with debt).
1 to 1 teaching, although desirable, would not come cheap in any place in the world!
Public college here and throughout most Europe is almost free and most students attenting public universities do not incur much debt (if any at all). That is a trap that you have set up for yourselves (assuming you're from the US).
Nevertheless, every student (computer engineering, that is) can chose is own courses, so, they can follow their own interests. We just make sure that each student starts from a good technical point so he can be a "true" engineer (as in having an engineering degree).
> There is a teaching style that caters more to the full circumstances of the students, taking into account their age and their economic situation and their interests, so that the teaching empowers them with knowledge, without also disempowering them in other ways (such as crushing them with debt).
1 to 1 teaching, although desirable, would not come cheap in any place in the world!
Max has turned out to be a prolific contributor to the React community and an expert on the subject of React component styling approaches. He's also a pretty good speaker :)
I had a sorta-similar path to getting involved with Redux over the last year and a half, which I wrote about at http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2016/09/how-i-got-here-my-j... . I'm also pleased to note that Max has been one of the biggest supporters of my efforts to improve Redux's documentation and provide help to people learning React and Redux, and I really appreciate his encouragement.
I had a sorta-similar path to getting involved with Redux over the last year and a half, which I wrote about at http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2016/09/how-i-got-here-my-j... . I'm also pleased to note that Max has been one of the biggest supporters of my efforts to improve Redux's documentation and provide help to people learning React and Redux, and I really appreciate his encouragement.
I remember first meeting you in the Reactiflux Discord during a lively discussion about Redux or somesuch. It's been amazing to follow your journey and I can't wait to see where you'll be going!
>My original plan was to find a job, but most of the companies I contacted didn’t even want to interview me.
If you happen to be in a position of authority in a tech company in the bay area, I would personally contact this guy and ask if one of these companies was yours. If it was, you have some serious work to do because your hiring practices are costing you more than you can easily imagine.
If you happen to be in a position of authority in a tech company in the bay area, I would personally contact this guy and ask if one of these companies was yours. If it was, you have some serious work to do because your hiring practices are costing you more than you can easily imagine.
I am curious how you come to that conclusion. Framework lust, particularly in the JS ecosystem, is inflated and often not representative of technical authority, experience, or sometimes even competence.
If I were a hiring manager and the candidate couldn't write very basic vanilla JS I wouldn't hire them either. I don't care that they have a bunch of github stars. The inability to solve simple problems without a framework is a liability.
If I were a hiring manager and the candidate couldn't write very basic vanilla JS I wouldn't hire them either. I don't care that they have a bunch of github stars. The inability to solve simple problems without a framework is a liability.
Github stars mean very little. It is free to give one and many people just star every repo they see.
The #1 repo by stars is FreeCodeCamp. I have not used the service, but if https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911647 is to be trusted then the count is inflated:
> GitHub part is so flawed... because FreeCodeCamp inflate their popularity by requiring during onboarding for the user to star their repository yet keeping them at the top. It's like if I told everyone to vote up my Hacker News posts... and gave them the link to do it and GitHub has no remedy for that inflation.
I'm also guilty of starring repos that seem cool but have not read the code or tried to use it. I've never used D3 in a project and can't speak to its quality, but I've seen some wicked cool demos and starred it as a bookmark of sorts.
The #1 repo by stars is FreeCodeCamp. I have not used the service, but if https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11911647 is to be trusted then the count is inflated:
> GitHub part is so flawed... because FreeCodeCamp inflate their popularity by requiring during onboarding for the user to star their repository yet keeping them at the top. It's like if I told everyone to vote up my Hacker News posts... and gave them the link to do it and GitHub has no remedy for that inflation.
I'm also guilty of starring repos that seem cool but have not read the code or tried to use it. I've never used D3 in a project and can't speak to its quality, but I've seen some wicked cool demos and starred it as a bookmark of sorts.
Free Code Camp is a massive outlier. It received most stars of any repo at 177,914 stars in 2016, and the second most (the google-interview-university which has appeared a few times on HN) has only received a fraction of that at 28,727 stars in 2016, which likely did not use as much growth hacking.
Full list of the Top 1000 Repos, freshly queried from BigQuery: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11bGpZq6ixlhrmQnzEUqb...
Full list of the Top 1000 Repos, freshly queried from BigQuery: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11bGpZq6ixlhrmQnzEUqb...
While it is an outlier it is also proof that it is a poor system of measurement.
It is? I think the problem is how we (mis)interpret the data to mean anything more than what it actually says.
So what's the takeaway, "Repo stars are an accurate measurement of how many stars a repo has"?
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I tend to agree that GitHub stars are a very dangerous metric to go off of. I tend to star repos that I think look "cool", often without trying to use them or even looking at the code at all. I've never considered it a damaging act, but I also didn't realize that some folks are encouraging others to make hiring decisions based off of GitHub stars.
That's complete bullshit. You can't judge the entire job market by one guy that ends up really good.
might be as interesting to know what companies he applied at, and how he presented himself.
Did he list his projects at this time? Did he email to info@?
Do people hiring for tech positions (esp out in the bay area) still filter just on school/degree, and weed out folks like max before learning anything else about them?
I'm not trying to "blame the victim" so to speak as much as figure out what steps he took. Did he actually talk to a real person, and did that person review his resume/repos, and still pass (or... as is the case with almost all companies, just go silent and never respond again)?
Did he list his projects at this time? Did he email to info@?
Do people hiring for tech positions (esp out in the bay area) still filter just on school/degree, and weed out folks like max before learning anything else about them?
I'm not trying to "blame the victim" so to speak as much as figure out what steps he took. Did he actually talk to a real person, and did that person review his resume/repos, and still pass (or... as is the case with almost all companies, just go silent and never respond again)?
The common propaganda that a GitHub-as-a-portfolio doesn't work in the real world, unfortunately. At minimum, an HR screener will never look at it and instantly dismiss the job application, even if it points to open source work, due the lack of paper education/professional experience in the field.
Isn't the github as a portfolio approach more for employment obtained via contacts/word of mouth than a traditional application to a HR department?
It might also be reviewed by people on a hiring panel or the hiring manager depending upon the company.
It might also be reviewed by people on a hiring panel or the hiring manager depending upon the company.
>If it was, you have some serious work to do because your hiring practices are costing you more than you can easily imagine.
Or they would just have some marginal returns for extreme opportunity costs if they improved them to also manage to get such persons.
Or they would just have some marginal returns for extreme opportunity costs if they improved them to also manage to get such persons.
I'm not sure what "extreme opportunity costs" are in this context. If you're referring to onboarding time, that would be the same whether you hire someone with an demonstrated open source pedigree or you hire someone straight from Stanford.
>If you're referring to onboarding time, that would be the same whether you hire someone with an demonstrated open source pedigree or you hire someone straight from Stanford.
No, I'm referring to the extreme restructuring and HR effort required to ensure you don't lose any such candidate.
No, I'm referring to the extreme restructuring and HR effort required to ensure you don't lose any such candidate.
Ah, that's fair.
1_2__3(1)
Congratulations Max.
Max worked with us to create an interactive course on React/Redux[1]. Just wanted to say that he's an awesome guy to work with. Always willing to help and giving constructive feedback.
Keep doing the good work Max. Congratulations again. Looking forward to 2017 and beyond.
[1]: https://www.educative.io/collection/5642398931615744/5741031...
Max worked with us to create an interactive course on React/Redux[1]. Just wanted to say that he's an awesome guy to work with. Always willing to help and giving constructive feedback.
Keep doing the good work Max. Congratulations again. Looking forward to 2017 and beyond.
[1]: https://www.educative.io/collection/5642398931615744/5741031...
Hey Fahim, thanks for the kind words!
----
I have a discount coupon for the course... It was originally meant for my friends, so I hope Fahim doesn't mind me sharing it, but if you enter "au-christmas" during checkout you can get yourself 60% off the original price! (I hope it's alright to post this, if not let me know mods and I'll delete this part!)
I hope you enjoy the course and Merry Christmas!
----
I have a discount coupon for the course... It was originally meant for my friends, so I hope Fahim doesn't mind me sharing it, but if you enter "au-christmas" during checkout you can get yourself 60% off the original price! (I hope it's alright to post this, if not let me know mods and I'll delete this part!)
I hope you enjoy the course and Merry Christmas!
mxstbr, I just want to sound one comment: the seamless way that 'max stoiber' transitions to the "<mxstbr>" "logo" when scrolling down, the smoothness of the metamorphosis, is really impressive. Lots of sites do this type of thing, but for some reason they all suck. Yours doesn't. Great job.
It's a little annoying on mobile - if you read to the bottom, you have to press back ~15 times to cycle back through the sections get to the previous page.
Extremely sorry about that, was totally unrelated to the header. Finally managed to replicate it and fixed it!
Really super sorry for the horrible experience.
Really super sorry for the horrible experience.
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Oh no! That's definitely a bug. What device/browser are you on?
i have same problem. android chrome
Ditto. Latest Android Chrome. Probably something to do with pushstate.
Super sorry about that, will get it fixed ASAP! (currently at a Christmas dinner with family...)
Strange. Works fine for me with
Google Chrome 55.0.2883.91 (Official Build) (32-bit)
Revision 733808abc67b7fce93430fcb00127707bffe4639-refs/branch-heads/2883@{#732}
OS Android 7.1.1; Nexus 6P Build/NMF26F
JavaScript V8 5.5.372.32Yeah I can't replicate it either on my OnePlus with Chrome. Really confused what's going on here, as I don't do any JS routing things at all...
Finally managed to replicate it, sorry about this! Was something to do with window.addEventListener('load') actually...
Fixed, extremely sorry about this!
Thank you, you cannot imagine how much I appreciate that! The time I spent making that look the way it does... That just made it all worth it.
While I am happy for his success, a part of me can't help but wonder: "Is being popular on twitter a big part of front end development these days?: JS, CSS, HTML and Twitter Followers"
This site messes up my browser navigation worse than anything I have ever seen before.
Congratulations ! It seems you built something people needed and loved :) .
Your story is an inspiration to people who think they're too "green" or "new" to contribute :)
Your story is an inspiration to people who think they're too "green" or "new" to contribute :)
Thank you for the kind words!
I absolutely agree, many junior developers are afraid to jump into open source – even though they totally don't have to be!
The pain points you have while developing, no matter at which level of experience, other people probably have them too. Some of them are already solved, but many of them aren't! If you solve one of them, it can only be good for you to generalize it a bit and push it on GitHub and npm.
Worst thing that can happen? Nobody uses your solution, oh well.
Best thing that can happen? It could change your live.
So why not do it?
I absolutely agree, many junior developers are afraid to jump into open source – even though they totally don't have to be!
The pain points you have while developing, no matter at which level of experience, other people probably have them too. Some of them are already solved, but many of them aren't! If you solve one of them, it can only be good for you to generalize it a bit and push it on GitHub and npm.
Worst thing that can happen? Nobody uses your solution, oh well.
Best thing that can happen? It could change your live.
So why not do it?
"So why not do it?"
Because giving your work away too freely devalues your work and that of your peers.
That may be offset by the benefits depending on the circumstance.
Because giving your work away too freely devalues your work and that of your peers.
That may be offset by the benefits depending on the circumstance.
> Your story is an inspiration to people who think they're too "green" or "new" to contribute :)
Not even to just new developers, even to us old developers. Max has been someone I look to as inspiration and I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
Keep up the good work, Max.
Not even to just new developers, even to us old developers. Max has been someone I look to as inspiration and I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
Keep up the good work, Max.
What a great story! As a fellow React developer (amongs other things) I really appreciate the stuff you have given back to the ecosystem (and in a really short time to boot!) Keep up the good work!
Does anybody know the font used in the screenshot [1]? It looks like a pretty typical monospace coding font but has fantastic pseudo-cursive italics. I can't figure out what it is, but I want it!
https://twitter.com/mxstbr/status/786478628829814784/photo/1
https://twitter.com/mxstbr/status/786478628829814784/photo/1
It's Operator Mono [1][2]. It was asked and answered further down the thread.
[1] http://www.typography.com/blog/introducing-operator [2] http://www.typography.com/fonts/operator/styles/
[1] http://www.typography.com/blog/introducing-operator [2] http://www.typography.com/fonts/operator/styles/
Thanks! I didn't see it mentioned here or in the HN comments, and looking at a bunch of font samples didn't turn it up, either. However I did stumble into Fira Code [1], which has some awesome ligatures for programming!
[1]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode
Edit: ouch Operator Mono is $199 and up. I've purchased quality fonts before, but that's well above my impulse-buy threshold.
[1]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode
Edit: ouch Operator Mono is $199 and up. I've purchased quality fonts before, but that's well above my impulse-buy threshold.
I want to think it is Consolas. But the author says it is "Operator Mono". The editor is Atom. Fonts can look different on Mac vs. Windows, I think.
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That's awesome and everything, but why can't I back out of your site??
I've been trying to replicate this bug for ages now, I have no idea what's going on! :( Massively sorry for the troubles!
Which device/browser are you on?
Which device/browser are you on?
Finally tracked it down and fixed it, should work fine again now! Extremely sorry about that, totally my fault.
"Books read: 40"
WOW. How did you find time for this?
WOW. How did you find time for this?
Airports visited: 24
Airport visits: 76
Airplanes boarded: 62
Kilometers travelled: 323,877
Travelling includes lots of waiting, at airports, counters, etc., so I just get my Kindle out and read in that downtime!
It sounds like more than it actually is.
It sounds like more than it actually is.
Cool, a real inspiration.
Happy user of Styled-Components here. :)
Thanks for your amazing work!
Thanks for your amazing work!
>My original plan was to find a job, but most of the companies I contacted didn’t even want to interview me.
@mxstbr - Contact me at [email protected] and send me your resume/cover letter/cold email that you used to approach these companies.. You probably just need a few tweaks with your personal pitch.
@mxstbr - Contact me at [email protected] and send me your resume/cover letter/cold email that you used to approach these companies.. You probably just need a few tweaks with your personal pitch.
For all of those who are now offering to hire the guy, could you be any more stereotypical? It's just like in music - every record label or tech company wants somebody to show up on their door already famous and/or already with a reputation of success - you know, basically the total package. Invest and develop new talent? Well, that's what unpaid internships are for - slave labor, and then we pick the best of the bunch...maybe! Same old song and dance. "Come back when you're famous."
This example is truly good for him, because he invested in himself when big-time names and others wouldn't bother at first, and now I hope he takes his time to pick and choose his opportunities now that he's earned his industry status.