(I speak as an OS X/emacs/go/prolog/javascript/... hacker, who was up until recently using .net/C# a lot)
I think something that a lot of the recruiting/hiring discussions on HN miss is that the hiring process is not only about finding people who are capable of doing the job. It's also about finding people who will thoroughly enjoy doing the job and get along well with the rest of the team.
For example, I spoke to a candidate (in other words he made it through this set of heuristics) whose background was in security and whose primary platform was windows. He was definitely very bright and very well accomplished, but by the end of the interview, I genuinely thought he would have been bored out of his mind at SeatGeek.
Similarly, if you don't use at least one of OSX, git, ruby or python, there's a decent chance SeatGeek just isn't for you. An important caveat, that should probably be in the post, is that if your answer to any of the specific-tech related questions is "no, but I saw that you use X at SeatGeek, and I'm interested in learning more about it", that's probably equivalent to a "yes".
I've been reading and participating in HN for a couple months now. It's become clear, like in every social group, that HN has a "popular" crowd. It might not necessarily be specific people, but that there's an aura of an HN mainstream that bubbles to the surface on and off.
This post stinks of that popularity. For someone like me who is generally a contrarian, it puts me off. I don't have anything personally against the OP. I certainly don't want to insult him, and I'm not even sure that my feelings are correct or warranted. I don't know him and have only casual familiarity with his startup, but his list read like a list of "popular" topics on HN. PG! YC! ShowHN! git! Python! Ruby! OS X!
I apologize for being off topic like that, this post just brought it out of me.
You mention web designers--out of the dozens of designers I respect, I don't know a single one who uses Windows. Do you?
I know quite a few RoR/Java/Linux/Unix sys admins who still use Windows on the desktop (inc. me).
OS choice shouldn't be a deal breaker.
Is having a Windows Phone also a deal breaker?
As a side point, is there really that much difference between OSX/Windows now a days? I've have Macbook Pro's, Imacs and Windows things as main machines and nowadays I don't see that much difference between them (esp if you're working on web dev). From Mac -> Windows or back seems like just a new novelty tech to learn not a deal breaker any more. From your article it seems unlikely that Mac OSX or Windows is running your servers anyway.
(Same with Android vs iPhone - both are so similar now)
I've seen a lot of open source programming languages that list cygwin as the windows installer option. That is a huge tell.
I would put linux & osx on their own camp and windows on another
grep / sed / awk / tail / ps / cat - then you add being able to pipe output between them
Then you have command line editors like vim for quick edits.
night & day vs the windows command prompt
just means i prefer windows on the desktop?
if friends ask me if they should change to Mac from Windows, nowadays my thinking is: "if you want to learn a new operating system that is different to Windows, get the Mac. If you just want to get stuff done and you already know Windows, get Windows"
(Note i'd say the same thing in reverse if they wanted to change to Windows from Mac, i.e. stick with the Mac if you want to get things done)
bottom line: you are not your desktop operating system choice (well you might be a Mac, but fscked if i'm a PC - both PC's and Mac's are tools, lol)
Either that, or I have to conclude that the Heuristics you mention are sullied by personal bias, and if so should be reviewed.
It may also be that your blog is part of the svbtle network that has triggered my personal biases.
I like his 'fail early' approach
