* A cheeky way of telegraphing “old-school coder” (or simply “middle-aged office dinosaur”) with sort of insider reference.
Semicolons = legacy-language tell. In most classic programming languages—C, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP—every line ends with a semicolon. Newer darling languages (Python, Go, Rust’s relaxed mode) either drop them or hide them. So a dev who still reflex-types “;” everywhere, even in Slack chat, reads as someone rooted in yesterday’s toolchain.
Slack = informal space. Nobody needs perfect punctuation in a chat channel. If you’re still peppering casual messages with semicolons, it screams habit, rigidity, or “I’ve been coding since Netscape.” The joke imagines an algorithm that mistakes that harmless quirk for a signal you’re easier to off-board.
Hidden age bias gag. In workforce-optimization lore, any trait that might correlate with being older or using “legacy tech” gets weighted as a negative; even if it’s totally irrelevant. The parenthetical “bonus points” mocks those absurd, bias-baked scoring models.
So the line is basically saying: “Our AI will dock extra points from anyone who still uses semicolons in casual chat, because clearly they’re stuck in 1997 and ripe for replacement.” A playful swipe at both techno-ageism and the pseudoscience baked into some HR algorithms.
Interesting presentation of alarming material 😨
* A cheeky way of telegraphing “old-school coder” (or simply “middle-aged office dinosaur”) with sort of insider reference.
Semicolons = legacy-language tell. In most classic programming languages—C, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP—every line ends with a semicolon. Newer darling languages (Python, Go, Rust’s relaxed mode) either drop them or hide them. So a dev who still reflex-types “;” everywhere, even in Slack chat, reads as someone rooted in yesterday’s toolchain.
Slack = informal space. Nobody needs perfect punctuation in a chat channel. If you’re still peppering casual messages with semicolons, it screams habit, rigidity, or “I’ve been coding since Netscape.” The joke imagines an algorithm that mistakes that harmless quirk for a signal you’re easier to off-board.
Hidden age bias gag. In workforce-optimization lore, any trait that might correlate with being older or using “legacy tech” gets weighted as a negative; even if it’s totally irrelevant. The parenthetical “bonus points” mocks those absurd, bias-baked scoring models.
So the line is basically saying: “Our AI will dock extra points from anyone who still uses semicolons in casual chat, because clearly they’re stuck in 1997 and ripe for replacement.” A playful swipe at both techno-ageism and the pseudoscience baked into some HR algorithms.
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