Is closing brackets with a smiley face (like this :) a thing now? I've seen it a few times recently. I don't like it. http://xkcd.com/859/

It's not new. I first saw it on usenet in the mid 90s.

See also: https://xkcd.com/541/

Solution: use a different type of bracket (sort of like this :])

Okay, removed the smiley

Actually, I didn't have a problem with the smiley. I was just suggesting that the question of how to close a parenthesis with a smiley is not solved ((yet :))|(yet :)).

I think you need to clear any cache of the page since I'm still seeing it.

Amen. Pet peeve of mine as well.

I have absolutely no idea, just came naturally when writing the post

Lol (The alternative isn't much better :))

I feel like it's the copy equivalent of that old story about the new "developer" deleting a bunch of braces at the end of the file because he didn't like the way they looked.

I'm a bit lost by this sentence:

> We will hire several (as many as possible, in fact) throughout the next few weeks only to show you, dear reader, the confidence we have in developers, we initially invited to be a part of our TaskForce!

First, what are you hiring several of? Is it implicitly referring to the "our guys" from the previous sentence? But then they aren't "your guys" yet, so I'm uncertain that's the intended meaning.

Also, the final clause confuses me. Who or what is being invited? Possible subjects are: "We", developers in general, the dear reader, the guys you will be hiring several of, or the guys from the previous sentence that are taking it from here. You could also mean you are "inviting confidence" by dogfooding.

It's meant as in we (the codeable team) will hire the contractors that work through Codeable - so yes, it's referring to "our guys". And they are "our guys", since some of them already made money through us, and we're super proud of that.

EDIT: fixed the sentence, hopefully it makes more sense now

I have a problem with phrases like "eat your own dog food" because I worked for a company whose founder formerly founded a very large Pet supply company.

He told story about actually having to eat his own actual dog food, then adjusting, branching out new lines of dog food and eating it again. He eventually took the company through IPO before creating a software startup. We were not allowed to use that phrase when I worked there.