

Github founder on how to become a famous^Wgood Rails developer - aditya
https://gist.github.com/0a2655aed6a26fa15a02

======
_pius
Far from the most important point, but easily my favorite one-liner:

 _Would you pay $100 an hour for an untrained accountant? Because if your
consulting rate is $100 an hour and you do your own accounting, that's exactly
what's happening._

~~~
byrneseyeview
That ignores the tax implications. If you earn $100 as a freelancer, you might
get $60 after tax, which means you'd have to work one hour and forty minutes
to pay your accountant $100 ( _edit: no. As aaronblohowiak notes, you would
have to work the same hour, because accountants are tax-deductible_ ). And
there are frictional costs -- I can hire myself as an accountant for free, but
I have to at least get referrals, make phone calls, sign contracts, and write
checks for my accountant.

So it's a little more complicated than that. Maybe "Would you pay an untrained
accountant $60 ( _edit: $100_ ) per hour, with zero transaction cost, no
agent-principal conflicts, and instant availability?" Maybe not a good deal,
but still a better deal.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
"If you earn $100 as a freelancer, you might get $60 after tax, which means
you'd have to work one hour and forty minutes to pay your accountant $100." -
um, isn't the accountant a business expense and therefore a writeoff?

~~~
byrneseyeview
Yes, editing to reflect that.

------
wallflower
The 2nd _half_ of this talk is excellent. Ignore the first half.

> My work experience wasn't what got me the job. I'm sure my cover letter had
> something to do with it, but my short lived career in trucking logistics was
> less than glamorous. I really only had one thing to show GameSpot - Spyc. My
> code was freely available, had been used in production, and worked. They
> could download it and play with it, or check it out online. Regardless of
> whether or not they thought it was good, they could tell it was clean and
> well thought out. Well, maybe not, but I had a website and 70 downloads.

> Code talks.

If you don't have any projects going right now, you should spend some time
here starting something new. Something you've been meaning to do but haven't
got around to. An idea that's been floating around.

~~~
vdm
I liked the whole thing actually.

~~~
pie
Exactly - I think the mega-sarcastic first half (which reminds me of "let's
sell out and make a hit song"-type talk from jaded bands in the 90s) sets the
stage for the more positive message in the second half which simply attempts
to illustrate the value of practical participation as opposed to lip service.
The verbosity and shameless github-vs-sourceforge examples toward the end are
a little tiresome, but I think this is a perceptive narrative that drags us
through interesting or at least minutia of software communities.

------
jlees
This advice is definitely applicable beyond code, the core point he's making
seems to be: get known, and participate.

Whether you're a blogger or wannabe games designer, this is definitely the way
to get ahead, and I totally regret the fact that some of the more fun projects
I've done have had nowt to show for it. I should've got involved in open
source earlier, and more obviously.

------
Raphael_Amiard
I found the whole article very very painful to read, with no leading thought.
I prefer to read his code, nothing really interresting in his talk for me,
except maybe the part about ruby rockstar attitude wich was fun

I guess it's the one liner style, it makes the whole thing sound so pointless
...

~~~
jeremymcanally
Ironically, that's the point of his talk.

------
mapleoin
uh, uh! A success story! I want to be like this guy. I bet if I do what he
says I might actually come close.

But wait! We have different personalities...

------
byrneseyeview
_Let's focus more on code and less on talk._

    
    
        bash-3.2$ wc -w ./rubyrant.txt
        4759 ./rubyrant.txt

~~~
gamache
<http://github.com>

That good enough for you?

