Happy birthday, Aaron Schwartz

When you hire a programmer (and indeed anyone, for that matter), you are faced with three questions. Is he smart? Is it able to do what is needed? Can you work with him? He who is clever, but unable to complete the task, may be your friend, but not an employee. You can discuss your problems with him, while he will be drawn to doing important work. The one who is capable of performing tasks, but unintelligent, is inefficient: unintelligent people do the work in a laborious way, working with them is progressing slowly and full of frustration. Well, with those with whom you can not work, you just can not work.

The usual procedure for hiring a programmer consists of: a) reading a resume, b) asking some difficult questions over the telephone and c) setting their personal programming tasks. I think such a system of hiring people is terrible. Very little can be learned from the summary, and difficult questions during interviews make people very nervous. Programming is not a job that is done under pressure, so watching the actions of people who are nervous is rather pointless. And questions for interviews are usually selected according to the principle “the heavier the better.” I think I am a tolerable programmer, but I have never gone through such interviews, and I doubt that I could have done it at all.

So when I hire someone, I just try to answer the three questions described above. To find out if a person is capable of doing the right things, I simply ask what he has already done. If a person is really able to do work, by this point he should have done something. It’s hard to be a good programmer without some work experience, but now anyone can gain experience by taking part in some free software development project. Therefore, I just ask a person for a sample code and a working program and see if it looks good. So you can really learn a lot, because you are not watching how he answers a contrived question during an interview - you look at the code that he actually gives out. Is it concise? understandable? elegant? practical? Would you like to have something like this in your project?

To find out if a person is smart, I just have an informal conversation with him. I try to do everything to relieve any tension - I make an appointment at a cafe, I explain that this is not an interview, I do everything to be informal and friendly. Under no circumstances, I do not ask him standard questions from an interview - I just chat with him, as I would have chatted with someone at a party. (If at parties you ask people to name their strengths and weaknesses or calculate the number of piano tuners in Chicago, you have a lot of problems.) I think it’s pretty easy to find out in an easy conversation whether a person is smart. I constantly evaluate the mind of the people I meet, just as I constantly appreciate their attractiveness.

But if I had to write down signs of why someone seems smart to me, I would focus on three points. First, how deep is his knowledge? Ask what he has been thinking about lately, and “feel” him on this topic. Does it seem like he has a detailed understanding of the subject? Can he clearly explain it? (Clear explanations are a sign of genuine understanding.) Does he know about the subject what you do not know?

Secondly, is he curious? Does he answer questions about you? Is he interested or just trying to be polite? Does he ask additional questions to what you say? Do his questions make you think?

Thirdly, does he learn? At some point in the conversation, you may be explaining something to him. Does he really understand what you are saying, or does he just smile and nod? There are people who have knowledge in a small area, but are not interested in other issues. And there are people who are curious, but do not study, they ask many questions, but do not really listen. You need someone who is both, and the third.

Finally, I determine if I can work with a person just by spending some time with him. Many outstanding people seem delightful in the first hour of communication, but after a couple of hours their eccentricity begins to annoy. So when you finish a casual conversation, invite him to dinner with the rest of the team or to the game in the office. Again, try to keep everything as informal as possible. The goal is to simply understand whether it will get on your nerves.

If everything looks good, and I am ready to hire a person, common sense says that it is necessary to have a final check to make sure that I was not somehow cheated: I ask him to do some of the work. This usually means that he should write some more or less independent piece of code that we need. (If you really want to see how he works in tense conditions, set a deadline for him.) If necessary, you can offer him to pay for this work - although I noticed that most programmers are not averse to performing a small task if later they can make the source code open. This test does not work by itself, but if someone has passed the first three tests, it should be enough to prove that the person has not fooled you, that he can actually do the work.

(I met people who say, “Well, okay, let us try to hire you for a month and see how it goes.” It does not seem to work. If you cannot make a decision on completing a small project, you don’t you can do it in a month, so it turns out that you hire someone who isn’t good enough. It’s better to just say no and look for someone better.)

I am quite satisfied with this method. When I only partially adhered to it, it ended with the recruitment of unsuitable people who eventually had to leave. But when I acted on this plan, I got people who I liked so much that I really am very sorry if I have to part with them. It's amazing how many companies use different, silly recruitment methods instead.

Source: How I Hire Programmers
Original: www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hiring

Information is power. But, as in the case of any force, there are those who want
keep it for yourself. All World Scientific and Cultural Heritage Published
over the centuries in books and magazines, more and more digitized and
“Locked up” by a handful of private corporations. Want to read materials reflecting
the most outstanding results of science? You will have to send huge sums
publishers like Reed Elsevier.

And there are those who struggle to change this order. "Free movement
Access "bravely fought for scientists not to give away their copyright
in favor of publishers, and instead their work would be published on the Internet at
conditions allowing anyone to access them. But, even in the case of the best
scenario, this achievement will relate to materials published in the future.
Everything that was before this moment will be lost.

This is too high a price. Forcing researchers to pay for
reading the work of their colleagues? Scan entire libraries, but allow them to read.
Google staff only? Provide scientific articles to elite universities of the countries
first world, but not children from third world countries? This is outrageous and
is unacceptable.

“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? Companies own
copyrighted they make huge money by getting them for access to
materials, and it is completely legal. We can't stop them. ”But, everything
well, something we can. Something that is already being done: we can resist.

People who have access to these resources - students, librarians, scientists - you
given the advantage. You feed on this feast of knowledge while
the rest of the world is locked up. But you should not, rather, you have no moral
rights to keep this privilege behind you. Your duty is to share it with the world. AND
you do this by sharing passwords with colleagues, filling in download requests
for friends.

At the same time, those who are cut off also do not sit with folded arms. You squeeze
through the holes and get over the fence, freeing closed publishers
information and sharing it with your friends.

But all these actions take place in a dark, hidden underground. It is called
theft or piracy, as if sharing wealth is morally equal to
looting a ship and killing his crew. But sharing is not
is immoral, it is a moral imperative. Only blinded by greed
refuse to allow a friend to make a copy.

Large corporations are undoubtedly blinded by greed. This is required by laws
according to which they function. Their shareholders will rebel if they receive less.
And the politicians bought by them cover them, passing the laws giving them
exclusive rights to decide who can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to go on
light and, in the great tradition of civil disobedience, proclaim our
resistance to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our own copies and
share them with the world. We need to take materials that are not covered.
copyrights, and add them to the archive. We need to buy secret bases.
data and upload them to the network. We need to download science journals and
upload them to file sharing networks. We must fight for "Guerrilla
open access".

With enough of us around the world, we will not only send convincing
a message opposing the privatization of knowledge, we will leave this system in
the past. Are you joining us?

Aaron Schwartz

Eremo, Italy, July 2008

Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

"During this time that you watch TV," they say to me, "you would have already written a new story." It's hard not to agree with this - writing a story is, of course, a better use of free time than watching a TV show - but it's not so simple, because by this it means that watching TV and writing a story are equivalent things, which, unfortunately, is not always like that

Time has different degrees of quality. If I go to the subway and find that I have forgotten my laptop, then a couple of paragraphs is all I can squeeze. In addition, it is difficult to concentrate when you are constantly pulled. Well, the psychological moment - sometimes you are winged, full of motivation and willingness to work on something, and sometimes you feel such irritation and fatigue that you can not do anything except to stare at the TV.
If you, nevertheless, want to increase your productivity, you must be clearly aware of such things and be able to cope with them. First, your task is to get the most out of each time interval. Secondly, you should try to improve the quality of your time.

Spend time effectively

Choose good problems
Life is short (in any case, they told me so), so why waste it doing this nonsense? Everyone can do something just because it is easy and simple, but you should always be careful in this matter: is there something that is much more important? Why did you start doing that in the first place? It’s hard to answer such questions (in the end this rule will lead you to the question “why don’t I solve the most important tasks in the world?”), But believe me, every small step in this direction will make you more efficient.
It is clear that you are not obliged to solve problems of universal scale all the time. Personally, I certainly do not do that (at the moment I am writing this note), but this is the measure that helps me evaluate my life.

Keep them in stock
Another common myth is to select one problem and focus only on it. I think this is a bit stiff. For example, right now I am following my posture, I pull up a dumbbell, I drink, I clean up on the table, chat with my brother and write this post. During the day, I will have time to work on this article, read a book, eat, answer several letters, chat with friends, go to the store, edit a couple more articles, make a backup of the contents of my hard drive and correct my list of books. Last week I worked on several IT projects, read several books, spent time learning a couple of programming languages, did a permutation, and so on.

When there are several tasks available, there is always something to do in any time interval of any quality. Plus, if things get stuck or you get bored, you can take on something else (and this will give you time to tune in to solve the original problem).

At the same time you become a more creative person. Creativity lies in the fact that the lessons learned from some projects, you can apply to others. If you have a lot of tasks, good and different, then later you will be armed with many ideas.

Make a list
Determining the range of tasks is usually not a difficult task - most people have a lot of things to do. But keeping all of them in mind is often an impossible task. The psychological pressure of remembering all this will drive anyone crazy. The solution is simple: write them down.

Having such a list of tasks, you can start sorting them by type. For example, my list includes programming, writing articles, thinking, housework, reading, listening and viewing records (in that order).

The most important projects include a number of similar tasks. While writing this article, I also needed to read about other similar techniques, think about organizing the article, work on reading its text, discuss it with other people, etc. - and all this as an addition to the actual writing of the text. Each task is of a certain type, so that you can begin to engage in it as soon as convenient time turns up.

Make it part of your life
You already have a list - now you can start looking at it in order to recall what needs to be done. The best way to train yourself to look through this list is to make sure it catches the eye. For example, on my desk a whole pile of books, and on top those that I am reading now. When I need to read, I just take the topmost book.

The same situation with movies. When a film appears, which I must see, I put it in a special folder in my computer. And every time I want to watch a movie, I just open this folder.

Moreover, I even think how to do it more pensively. For example, to pop up a web page with a list of required articles to read as soon as I start climbing blogs. Or even better - popup-window with suggestions, what edakim to do, whenever I sit around idle.

Enhance your time

Using the full amount of the allotted time will allow you to achieve more. The main task is to improve the quality of time. Many people's lives are filled with things like school or work. Clearly, doing these things, you temporarily stop doing other things. What else can be done?

Reduce physical limitations

Carry a pen and paper
Almost all outstanding people have a pocket notebook that they carry with them everywhere. Pen and paper are extremely convenient, and in any circumstances - when you need to write someone a note, make notes on some issue, jot down an idea, and the like. I even managed to write whole articles in the subway.

(I’ve done this before, but now I always take my smartphone with me. Yes, he doesn’t allow me to physically write notes to people, but as compensation I always have at hand reading (email), plus I send the notes directly to my email box, where I certainly will not forget about them)

Make it so that you do not pull
For tasks that require increased concentration, you should try to make sure that you do not pull. The easiest way out is to go where these bothers can't find you. Another solution is to conclude an agreement with other people: “Do not touch me when the door is closed” or “Email me when I'm sitting in my headphones” (and then you can probably ignore these messages until you are free).
And do not go to extremes. Sometimes, when time is wasted, you have to be interrupted. It is better to help someone with his problems than to sit and climb blogs. Therefore, the conclusion of certain agreements is a good idea: you can be distracted when you are not particularly focused on work.

Reduce mental limitations

Eat, sleep, exercise
The moments when you are hungry, tired, or downtrodden are a time of low quality. It is easy to raise: eat, sleep and exercise. Nevertheless, even I sometimes do not find for this time. I am not a big fan of going after a meal, so I often continue to work, remaining hungry, and as a result I get so tired that I simply don’t have the strength to “go and make myself some food”.

It is tempting to say to yourself: “Yes, I am tired, but you cannot sleep - there is still a lot of work.” In fact, you will become much more productive if you still sleep, because Your time will become better as compared with if you would stay working sleepy.

I myself am not so much involved in sports, so perhaps I am not the best adviser in this matter, but I try not to miss the opportunity to warm up a little. When I lie and read, I strain the press. If you need to go somewhere on foot, I do a run.

Communicate with energetic people
Reducing mental limitations is a little more difficult. In this difficult matter helps the presence of friends, full of energy. For example, after communicating with Paul Graham (Paul Graham) or Dan Connelly (Dan Connolly), I am always very willing to work - after all, they simply radiate energy. Sometimes it seems that to do the work you need to hide from people and lock yourself in your room, but this is very deorganizing, so this is not an option.

Distribute the load
Even if your comrades are not full of energy, like Energizer, working on a serious problem side by side with someone else is much easier. First, the mental load is distributed for two. Secondly, having a colleague nearby will not let you kick the noodle.

Procrastination and Mental Force Field
All these tricks - walking around the bush. The biggest problem in efficiency is delay. This is such a small wormhole - everyone pulls the cat by the tail, and very much so. You are not the only one, but this does not mean that you can come to terms with it.

What is procrastination? For a casual observer, it looks like this: you just do something “cool” (like playing shooters or reading blogs) instead of doing your job. (Often this fact forces the casual observer to conclude that you are bad and lazy). Question: what happens inside your head?

I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of all this, and I can explain it in a way that the brain sets up something like a mental force field around a task. Have you ever played with a pair of magnets? If they are turned as it should and brought closer to each other, then they will strongly repel each other. Twist them a little - and you can find the boundaries of the force field. When you try to blind them, the field will push them away or even scatter them in different directions.

Mental plugging works about as well. It can not be touched or seen, but you can grope its borders. The more you pull to work, the stronger the opposition. In the end, you just change the place of application of their forces.

Just as you cannot connect two magnets together, just pressing very hard - they will scatter as soon as you stop pressing - it is impossible to overcome the psychic force field by force of will. Here you need to take a trick - you just need to turn the magnets.

What determines this mental force field? Two main factors come to mind: is the task difficult and is it planned.

Difficult tasks

Divide into pieces
The first type of difficult task is too big a task. For example, you want to create an application for organizing recipes. Few people can just sit down and make such an organizer. This is a goal, not a task. The task is one concrete step that you can take to achieve the goal. A good example of a priority is “to sketch a screen layout when displaying a recipe.” This is what you can really do.

When you do this, then, as a rule, the next step becomes obvious. You will have to decide what parts the recipe consists of, what functions are needed for the search interface, how to organize a recipe database, etc. You move forward, the next follows from each task.

For each of my large projects, I ponder all the tasks ahead and add them to the todo list (I wrote about this earlier). When I stop work, I add possible next steps to the todo list.

Simplify
The next type is too intricate or difficult. Writing a book sounds discouraging, so start with a sketch. If this too is difficult, make a brief summary. The most important thing is to do something right now.

When you have something already, you can find the best solution, to comprehend the task. In addition, it is easier to make adjustments to something real than to start from scratch. If the abstract went well, it can turn into an essay, and then into the book, step by step, piece by piece.

Think about the task
Often the key to solving a complex problem lies in a breath of inspiration. If you are not very aware of the subject area, obviously, you need to start with research - look at how others do it, start to “feel” the territory. Get a common vision of this business. Solve a couple of smaller tasks to make sure you get your hand.

Scheduled Tasks
Scheduled tasks are those tasks that you were told to do. Numerous experiments have shown that when you try to “stimulate” people to do something useful, they tend to do it with less enthusiasm, and the quality of work leaves much to be desired. External stimuli, such as reward or punishment, kill in the bud what psychologists call “internal motivation” - your genuine interest in the task. (This is one of the most discussed discoveries of socio-psychology - more than 70 works confirm that prizes reduce interest in solving the problem.) It seems that deep in human nature sits a strong hatred for pointers.

What is strange - this phenomenon applies not only to other people; the same thing happens when you tell yourself what to do! If you say to yourself, “I need to work on X, this is the most important thing at the moment,” then suddenly X will become a task, forcing myself to work on which is harder than anything else. However, as soon as Y becomes the most important task, the same X goes much easier.

Substitute goals
The most obvious solution: if you need to work on X, tell yourself to work on Y. Unfortunately, this is the case when consciously fooling yourself is difficult enough, because you still know the real state of things. We'll have to act on the sly.

One option is for someone to give you another task. The most common example of such a solution is graduate students who have to write a thesis - a kind of monumental work necessary for successful graduation. , , .


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: Alexander Skakunov
: www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity