Talk:Joel Spolsky

Schlemiel the Painter's algorithm was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 21 February 2014 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Joel Spolsky. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

This article was nominated for deletion on 3 August 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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1

Put some indication of sexuality in main article[edit]

I would suggest to make some mention of sexuality in the main article. AS a reader, I was quite confused why the links section has lots of LBGT pieces when it wasn't so clear in the article

Schlemiel the Painter's algorithm[edit]

First, it's not clear if this is a generally accepted term or just an example from one of Spolsky's articles. Second, is there a reason to summarize the entire article in detail here? This section could be reduced to a short paragraph--assuming there's clear notability for the term--but I suspect that edits will be reverted (hence this note). Dgpop (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a heck of a lot of stuff in that paragraph that gives no source. Original research perhaps, or an opinion? See especially: "The problems illustrated by Spolsky's example are not noticed by a programmer who is using a high-level language and has little or no understanding of how the language implementation works." It implies that the string concatenation problem that is the subject of the example is present in higher-level languages, but goes unnoticed because of the limited understanding of the programmer. But in a higher-level programming language, strings typically are wrapped in some sort of class or struct that includes the length of the string, so the compiler uses that - rather than walking the string to find a null terminator - to find the end of the string. So in most (all?) higher-level languages, the problem of walking a longer and longer string to find the null terminator when concatenating does not occur. People may well disagree with me on this of course, but I suggest that unless someone puts up some verifiable reliable source for that statement, it should be deleted. (And as per Dgpop, it is not clear how this section is about Spolsky anyway.) Jinlye (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The quote you mentioned is derived from the article (have you read it?) Also the point he's making isn't one should rely on even higher level constructs as you suggest, but quite the contrary. He warns that software should be efficient all the way from the low level up and modern programmers are getting more and more removed from the low level stuff working behind that what they use. See his articles about "leaky abstractions" to find out more.

Arny (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notability[edit]

I've just removed a {{notability}} tag. As for most intaweb-related people his web footprint is vast and so simply counting Ghits doesn't really prove much. However his tangential writing on the process of software development (notably the "Java Schools Considered Harmful" essay) and the frequency with which this is cited elsewhere throughout the industry would swing it for him being regarded as notable. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

... that, and the fact that he's a published author, and the progenitor of several things which we have distinct articles for: Fog Creek Software, Stack Overflow (website), FogBugz, Fog Creek Copilot, and CityDesk. Warren -talk- 15:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality, citizenship and passport[edit]

Does anyone have real references for this? (or just mail the guy, he doesn't bite). He's obviously based in the USA, has strong connections with Israel, and the New Zealand connection is hardly more than ancestry and a passing joke passport, from a WP:COI self-published ref that also confuses passports and citizenship (by his criteria, I'd be Irish). None of this is really holding up to WP:BLP standards. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not a real reference, but he mentions it in the Stack Overflow podcast episode 13, 2 min 32 seconds to 4 min 18 seconds, telling the story of how he got the passport.

MP3 file for episode 13: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/audio/download/ITC.SO-Episode013-2008.07.08.mp3 --Mortense (talk) 12:04, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is also mentioned briefly in Stack Overflow podcast episode 43, 46 min 28 Secs - 46 min 41 Secs.

MP3 file for episode 43: http://cdn.conversationsnetwork.org/ITC.SO-Episode43-2009.02.24.mp3 --Mortense (talk) 22:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The man had served in Cahal. I think you have to be Israeli to be drafted. Errarel (talk) 23:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discontinuation of the Weblog[edit]

The article mentions a precise date in 2010 for the discontinuation of Joel's popular blog. But I've just checked out his blog and found no evidence of discontinuation, even in the time around the mentioned date. From where did the discontinuation come out? Protez (talk) 01:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The reference for that statement is an edition of Jeff Atwood's Stack Overflow podcast, although I'm not going to listen for an hour to check it. Feel free to check it out yourself if you doubt it. RossPatterson (talk) 11:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I listened to some of the podcast and around 13 minutes in, Joel mentions "that I'm probably going to stop the main Joel on Software blog - I guess I haven't really publicly announced this yet - so the main Joel on Software blog probably going to end on a ten year anniversary, March 18th". Considering there's no evidence that he went through with discontinuing the blog I removed the statement in this article. 15.219.153.80 (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, he's still posting, albeit rarely, so the statement is wrong, regardless of Spolsky's intent. RossPatterson (talk) 21:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion nomination[edit]

Why was this nominated for deletion? That's absurd. UmassThrower (talk) 18:23, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joel Spolsky is the place, not here. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:57, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject LGBT Studies[edit]

Why is this article listed under WikiProject LGBT Studies? Jarble (talk) 08:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear. There's no reference in the article to him being LGBT himself or involved in LGBT issues, so I've removed the template. Robofish (talk) 21:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the banner or don't, but Spolsky's open about this. For example, on November 4, 2012, he tweeted from his verified Twitter account (@spolsky):

If you're not into gay marriage, don't get gay married--but my marriage to Jared isn't hurting you and should be legal everywhere

RossPatterson (talk) 22:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Spolsky posted this: [1]. I still don't believe this means Spolsky is involved in LGBT issues to the threshold necessary for incorporating into the article, just thought I should mention it. --Yamla (talk) 18:00, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That would entail removing the LGBT categories from the article, not the project banner from the talk page. Those are governed by different rules. Diego (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]