I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.

I’ve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.

All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.

I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.

Lately I’ve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.

I don’t do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?

Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:

- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?

I specifically avoid trap-style questions like “what is your greatest weakness?” or “why are you leaving your current job?”

I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. “are they good at acquiring new skills?” or “do they share the same values as the team?” and then structure the interview around that.

Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.

#jobs

"The Family Plan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16431870) was much better than I expected 🙂

In fact, I think the only other Marky Mark movie that I enjoyed more than this was "The Big Hit" and that was way back in the 90s.

Mostly good fun, a few stupid bits, but overall good family entertainment!

#Movies #English #Hollywood #MarkWahlberg

I’ve spent the past couple days battling with SwiftUI’s transferable protocol and ShareLink to export images to iMessage while retaining the gps data and I haven’t cracked it. Does anyone have experience with this?
#iosdev #swift #swiftui #indiedev #help

"Dhootha" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19868374) has an interesting concept but is marred by poor execution.

The characters over-explain everything and Naga Chaitanya has just one expression. I'm not sure he can make the main character believable ...

I'm still on the first episode and am on the fence about continuing, but I guess I’ll continue to watch just to see how the episode ends.

#TV #Telugu #Thriller #SuperNatural?

"Candy Cane Lane" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21328106) is an OK enough Christmas movie, but I expected something special/magical from it.

Just didn't get that feeling. It was just a run-of-the-mill kind of story with a little bit of heartwarming family-stuff thrown in.

Just didn't have that “something” which makes you care about the characters …

#Movies #English #Christmas #CandyCaneLane #EddieMurphy

"Label" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25965602) continues to impress with each episode. The story is interesting, has at least one poignant moment in each episode that also makes you think about people in general, and has interesting twists.

Well worth watching ...

#TV #Tamil #Legal #Gangster #Label

@sideshow_boz I use the Xcode one — generally for the same snippets that I can’t bother to remember, over and over again 😛

“Why waste memory loading a third-party app if the built-in one does the job for you?” is my motto.

@sideshow_boz @flanker Sure thing 🙂

Just providing a bit of additional info since I did this for several collaborative projects where people were submitting PRs (and definitely not trying to be nitpicky 😛) …

I generally create a sample.xcconfig or template.xcconfig file and put the placeholders in that and commit that. But I add the real ones (debug.xcconfig and/or release.xcconfig) to the .gitignore file so that they don’t get committed to the repo.

Then, in my instructions I tell people to copy the template file to the real version and add their own info.

That way, all they have to do is clone the repo, create the xcconfig files once and they are set. All their PRs and commits don’t mess up your set up and vice versa 🙂

@sideshow_boz @flanker Or, you can add an xcconfig file to the project to hold the team ID and a few other details. I find that option easier (if set up properly and documented). Details here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/adding-a-build-configuration-file-to-your-project

This repo has an example showing how it works:
https://github.com/huggingface/swift-coreml-diffusers

I was going to suggest this for Chinotto but then got busy 🙂

It makes it so much easier to keep a repo in sync with your own changes because the Xcode project itself doesn’t get changed and all you have to do is not commit *your* xcconfig to the repo …

Exchange from "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters":

"Cryptozoologist, what's that?"

"He studies animals that don't exist."

If he studies animals that don't exist, isn't the correct term "hallucinating"? 😛

I believe it's more correct to say that he studies animals that aren't yet proven to exist?

#TV #Monarch

"Kannur Squad" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25274786) is a good movie — part police procedural and part road trip across India ...

Not a lot of one-man-against-20 "heroism" (except towards the end) but a more accurate and realistic depiction of police work than is usual.

So many small touches like the initial case to introduce the team, the individual personal stories, the bureaucratic hassles you would have to face in day-to-day police life (which is never shown in the more “hero”-oriented stories) etc …

Well worth watching.

#Movies #Malayalam #PoliceProcedural #AcrossIndia

"Tiger Nageswara Rao" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9688874) is a horrible male-centric movie. The women are used, abused, held-hostage, and simper after the "hero" but don't seem to have any capacity to think or any agency of their own ...

Of course, this is all probably excused as this was how it was in the 70's?

I wanted to stop watching it multiple times but continued on just because I want to see how bad it gets. And it gets really bad …

No real redeeming qualities to this one.

#Movies #Telugu #TheOther70sShow #AMansWorld

Disney's "Culpirts" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14531774) says that it's about what happens after a heist.

But I think what they're trying to hide is the fact that this bunch of clowns couldn't have pulled off a heist in the first place.

They aren't paranoid enough, really stupid, and not really criminals. The only way the story moves forward is by them being stupid. And I really hate that kind of lazy story telling ...

#TV #Culprits #English #Heist #BadWriting

I haven't liked the tone, plot, or the feel of a lot of Hindi movies of recent times.

But "The Great Indian Family" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18561736) is something I can get behind 💯 It's a feel good, thought provoking, and funny movie which satirizes a lot of racial tropes. Loved it!

What can I say? I do love a good Yash Raj Films movie 😛

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #FeelGood #Satire

I'm often amused by how some Indian filmmakers try to depict "manliness" — "They say several brothels are in business due to me," is the latest example.

Will they also include how many clinics and pharmacies are in business due to the diseases that guy must be spreading? 😛

Mind you, this is said by the “hero”, who is 55 years old in real life (but probably playing a 30 year old), to a 28 year old who is playing an 18-20 year old ...

Feels a little bit off to me even if this is how the dream machine works ...

#Movies #IndianMovies #Telugu #Manliness #Stupidity

@sideshow_boz Definitely looks useful to me 🙂 Just found the GitHub repo. Will build it later today and send you feedback if I have any …

@sideshow_boz I’m definitely interested in something like that 🙂 So will keep an eye out on your posts ...

I do (or try to do) a personal project every weekend to fulfil my own personal needs and I had an improved XcodeCleaner in the “someday” list … but didn’t have concrete things to accomplish.

But you have a clear roadmap, so will probably just wait for your app 🙂 Put me down for beta testing if you need testers …

@sideshow_boz Understood 🙂 I did some checking comparing both DevCleaner and XcodeCleaner (https://github.com/waylybaye/XcodeCleaner-SwiftUI) and XcodeCleaner does provide more detailed info … though it might not be apparent at first.

It gives a breakdown in the sidebar and if you click on each sidebar item, you get more detailed info. Perhaps that’s similar to what you were looking for?

@sideshow_boz Apologies, I checked the thread in my Mastodon client and it didn’t show any info and so I asked about the focus … Then went to the original thread and discovered that you’d already covered that question 😛

I’d certainly be interested in something which provides a bit more detail, especially if the stats provided by DevCleaner are wrong ...

Now I guess I’ll have to do some comparisons myself and see what happens 🙂

@sideshow_boz Doesn’t apps like “DevCleaner”, or the open source XcodeCleaner (on GitHub) and similar projects do this already?

Or are you thinking of something different to what I’m thinking about?

Just wondering because I’m always interested in new tools but just wondering if your approach does something differently than the existing solutions 🙂