Every time I see a reference to Ghost I think of the interview with the founder where he lamented the choice of NodeJS, insisting that if he had opted for a modern PHP framework (Laravel was named) they would be 1.5 years further down the feature roadmap.
I've built RemoteHub in PHP on Laravel. There's also some jQuery written (you can call me oldschool) – I should maybe switch my JS framework. But I'm used to jQuery, hah. And what's wrong with jQuery?
I mean, yes I've played around with Node etc, but somehow I've sticked with PHP. Maybe because it was the first language (computer language) I learned.
And I really like Laravel. It's actually so cool that you can use frameworks like Laravel for free although a lot of people have contributed a massive amount of their time into these open source projects. And then you come and just built your project on top of it!
We use PHP for our backend stuff. We've been using our own custom framework for years, but are in the process of migrating to Laravel now (something we really should have done much earlier).
I can understand the hate for PHP. As it is easy to pick up and because it doesn't enforce good coding practices, PHP has become a magnet for poorly capable programmers. In fact, one of our great challenges is that the majority of candidates who apply for PHP Software Engineer (SE) positions are barely capable of programming in the first place.
At the end of the day, what matters is the skill of the tech team. A team of SEs with strong coding skills and well thought out engineering/architectural practices can create systems that are well-built, scalable and maintainable, regardless of language. Conversely, no programming language or framework can compensate for a lack of skill or poor knowledge of good engineering practices.
Seems a big reason for that was the lack of maturity in the node module ecosystem 6-7 years ago.
From the interview:
"How do we gone down a PHP root? I think from a product point of view, we'd probably be a lot
further along than we are now, because in the PHP ecosystem much like in the Ruby
ecosystem, or even the Python ecosystem to some extent, this tooling is well understood. It has
evolved over a long amount of time. You have your defaults that just work. You have your
libraries, which have been time-tested, proven they're great.
Whereas in end of 2012, beginning of 2013 starting out into the node.js ecosystem, pretty Wild
West. There's not a lot of stuff going on. There was barely a usable authentication library that
we could start working with. Even to this day, it's not – there's a lot of things where if you were
working in Ruby or PHP you’d go, “Yeah. Obviously, I'll just grab this library that everyone uses.”
Whereas in node you go, “I can't believe that doesn't exist.”
I think when we wrote the first version of Ghost that wasn't a usable RSS library for parsing XML
and delivering RSS feeds in node, and that was just mind boggling. Then that has repeated
enough times to where it really slowed us down."
Some added by me based on their website, some joined themselves. I reach out to the ones I add and ask them to review and fix. Not all answer me though.
Let me know which company and I'll try to reach them and fix! You can also email me hello at remotehub
That's true, but I've seen a lot of those remote work website being a remote worker myself, and this it's A LOT ahead.
Also this link in particular shows the most important metric that everyone is neglecting in other similar sites: how many cities your "remote" company cover?
It's also an important metric to understand the company colture: for eg. a lot of US-based remote companies hire only US-based employees
Thanks! This is what I'm trying to put my effort on. These maps.
And you're right. It helps to understand the company's remote culture. How remote are they? Will you be part of a remote team covering the whole globe or are you one of the two remote team members.
Both are cool! People just like different things. I mean, when you join a fully remote company, there's probably a remote culture in place. But when you're one of the first remote members, maybe you can be part of shaping the culture yourself.
To me it just seems like they make money off of these companies, and, as a quid pro quo, put up a website calling them "top". Nothing much to see there.
Yea, I was actually expecting and hoping to see some sort of actual statistics about remote work, not a score-board for companies to boast on about how wide they've spread.
Good point. What kind of stats would be interesting? I'm thinking about doing some questionnaire with remote companies on my site.
I've started with "interviews". Basically a list of questions remote companies can answer. Not too many yet, but some:
https://remotehub.io/remote-work
It'd be interesting to know more about why and how people ended up working remote, how it impacts their lives, how it impacts their job search, how it impacts their day-to-day work, what kind of sacrifice (if any) was required to go remote, what sort of experience did they have to start with, etc.
Cool, thanks. Also curious how people end up working remote. Maybe they read about how cool remote work is (haha ok there are downsides too) and then they ask their employer to allow remote or find a new job.
Hah, cool! I mean, yeah – there's a lot of remote work sites. Like new sites added every week, right.
I'm trying to put my effort to these remote company maps. I think it's cool to see how distributed the team is when planning to join.
Some companies are fully remote. Some have only a few remote team members next to a big office. Some located in North America. Some covering basically the whole globe.
This dataset is very incomplete. I guess I’m partially at fault for that as I know your team reached out to me multiple times to answer a survey prior to you launching the site.
But yes, I'm trying to reach everyone I add. I usually find a general email and often won't get any reply. But I get it. Email is full of spam! :)
And of course you can contribute! I'm happy to fix any data! If you're with one of the companies listed on my site, just email me and I'll give you edit access. There's admin available for editing locations, benefits, retreats and everything else on the company profile.
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/07/26/ghost-open-s...
I mean, yes I've played around with Node etc, but somehow I've sticked with PHP. Maybe because it was the first language (computer language) I learned.
And I really like Laravel. It's actually so cool that you can use frameworks like Laravel for free although a lot of people have contributed a massive amount of their time into these open source projects. And then you come and just built your project on top of it!
I can understand the hate for PHP. As it is easy to pick up and because it doesn't enforce good coding practices, PHP has become a magnet for poorly capable programmers. In fact, one of our great challenges is that the majority of candidates who apply for PHP Software Engineer (SE) positions are barely capable of programming in the first place.
At the end of the day, what matters is the skill of the tech team. A team of SEs with strong coding skills and well thought out engineering/architectural practices can create systems that are well-built, scalable and maintainable, regardless of language. Conversely, no programming language or framework can compensate for a lack of skill or poor knowledge of good engineering practices.
From the interview:
"How do we gone down a PHP root? I think from a product point of view, we'd probably be a lot further along than we are now, because in the PHP ecosystem much like in the Ruby ecosystem, or even the Python ecosystem to some extent, this tooling is well understood. It has evolved over a long amount of time. You have your defaults that just work. You have your libraries, which have been time-tested, proven they're great.
Whereas in end of 2012, beginning of 2013 starting out into the node.js ecosystem, pretty Wild West. There's not a lot of stuff going on. There was barely a usable authentication library that we could start working with. Even to this day, it's not – there's a lot of things where if you were working in Ruby or PHP you’d go, “Yeah. Obviously, I'll just grab this library that everyone uses.” Whereas in node you go, “I can't believe that doesn't exist.”
I think when we wrote the first version of Ghost that wasn't a usable RSS library for parsing XML and delivering RSS feeds in node, and that was just mind boggling. Then that has repeated enough times to where it really slowed us down."
[0]: https://automattic.com/about/
Yeah, no, thanks.
Let me know which company and I'll try to reach them and fix! You can also email me hello at remotehub
Also this link in particular shows the most important metric that everyone is neglecting in other similar sites: how many cities your "remote" company cover?
It's also an important metric to understand the company colture: for eg. a lot of US-based remote companies hire only US-based employees
And you're right. It helps to understand the company's remote culture. How remote are they? Will you be part of a remote team covering the whole globe or are you one of the two remote team members.
Both are cool! People just like different things. I mean, when you join a fully remote company, there's probably a remote culture in place. But when you're one of the first remote members, maybe you can be part of shaping the culture yourself.
But calling them "top". Yeah, not a competition or anything. Just for fun, really.
I've started with "interviews". Basically a list of questions remote companies can answer. Not too many yet, but some: https://remotehub.io/remote-work
It'd be interesting to know more about why and how people ended up working remote, how it impacts their lives, how it impacts their job search, how it impacts their day-to-day work, what kind of sacrifice (if any) was required to go remote, what sort of experience did they have to start with, etc.
Anyways, Buffer did a nice report: https://buffer.com/state-of-remote-work-2019
and they are working on new one together with Angel List (maybe more).
I'm trying to put my effort to these remote company maps. I think it's cool to see how distributed the team is when planning to join.
Some companies are fully remote. Some have only a few remote team members next to a big office. Some located in North America. Some covering basically the whole globe.
Is it still possible to contribute data?
But yes, I'm trying to reach everyone I add. I usually find a general email and often won't get any reply. But I get it. Email is full of spam! :)
And of course you can contribute! I'm happy to fix any data! If you're with one of the companies listed on my site, just email me and I'll give you edit access. There's admin available for editing locations, benefits, retreats and everything else on the company profile.
I've been a remote corporate employee for 9 years now. (Had 21 years of non-remote programming before then.)
It's pretty much a must-have for me now. I really love it.