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In defence of Douglas Crockford

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Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#21
I know nothing of this situation other than what I just read in the linked blog, but speaking as someone who is very sympathetic to the cause of the continued problems of sexism in the tech industry, I'm very confused about what the problem is, if it is in fact related to either of those two quoted statements.

Nodevember's tweet seems borderline libelous to me, unless they are willing to explain exactly what the event/statement/whatever is that got him pulled from the lineup is.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#22
post #15

I thought this wouldn't be an issue in CS; thankfully it only seems to be the Js community -- or at least I hope so. Medium is now becoming less informative on technologies and software into a platform for finger pointing and complaining, which is really depressing imo.

It's happened in Ruby and Python as well—so if you hate it stay away from dynamic web languages with low entry levels.

Exactly. Hardcore languages like C++, Lisp, Haskell, etc. should be safe for a little while longer. SJW presence seems to be inversely proportional to the degree of rigor required to use a language.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#23

Ignoring the fact this discussion about this, and this culture as a whole, is a minefield to navigate, it's important to note that Douglas Crockford can definitely be abrasive [1]. The issue at hand is that whether this abrasiveness is a bad thing, when compared to the contributions he's made and whether it leads to constructive discussions. The javascript developer who took offense (Kas?) definitely seems to have ta…

People and organizations can be justified in shunning Crockford's allegedly level of abrasiveness, so I don't agree that Kas took it too far in opining that Crockford, by Kas's standards, is a jerk (I do, however, disagree with the purported evidence of Crockford's "slut-shaming). My tolerance for what is jerk-like behavior is probably not a good one, and I think I've definitely made people feel unwelcome at times, even if inadvertently.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#24

As the other poster mentioned, I'm very sympathetic to the cause of egalitarianism and pre-third-wave feminism. However, hopefully we will see more and more pushback against this kind of senseless crying wolf. If you're in favor of social justice, THIS is the thing you're fighting against? If this even shows up on your radar and is a priority, then I'd say the mission you're fighting for has been accomplished a long…

> I'm not quite ready to believe that.

I used to be where you are.

I am now however firmly of the belief that there are these sociopaths wanting to exert control over others.

What's worse is that their righteousness only fuels their fervor.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's happened in Ruby and Python as well—so if you hate it stay away from dynamic web languages with low entry levels.

Exactly. Hardcore languages like C++, Lisp, Haskell, etc. should be safe for a little while longer. SJW presence seems to be inversely proportional to the degree of rigor required to use a language.

I've noticed this too! The communities I deal with that spend the least amount of time worrying about tangential issues like "who's offended" are the CUDA/C++ and the Verilog/VHDL communities. Never see any issues like this come up, ever.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's happened in Ruby and Python as well—so if you hate it stay away from dynamic web languages with low entry levels.

Exactly. Hardcore languages like C++, Lisp, Haskell, etc. should be safe for a little while longer. SJW presence seems to be inversely proportional to the degree of rigor required to use a language.

I'm going to start using brainfuck for everything.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#28

I have to wonder if this was a real complaint or if it was done to highlight the obvious problem here, a bit like the guy who patented a "Method of exercising a cat". I mean, if you're going to ban Douglas Crockford from your conference it should at least be for his stated prejudice against comments in data-interchange formats. Not vague allegations that may damage his personal and professional reputation, to which h…

re: whether Crockford has a case about libel.

The allegations are published and the OP links to the original complaint on Medium: https://medium.com/@nodebotanist/why-i-won-t-be-speaking-at-...

Furthermore, the best defense against libel is the truth. Part of the complaint is an opinion based on public statements made by Crockford (the "slut-shaming"). The other published complaint is that Crockford said to the complainant before her talk, "the talks as the day went on just got stupider and stupider.” Unless he can convincingly prove that he never made such a statement to the complainant, he's not going to have much of a libel case. He could argue damages based on "false light", I suppose. [0]

On a (computer-related) technical standpoint, I disagree with what you think is the right reason ban a technical speaker, e.g. Crockford "for his stated prejudice against comments in data-interchange formats". That's the kind of strong diverse opinions that a tech conference should be thirsty for, just like a Ruby conference should be thrilled to have Edsgar Dijkstra talk about object-oriented programming.

But if someone says, "People who think comments belong in data interchange formats are fucking morons"...Yeah, I could see why some conferences wouldn't invite them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#29
I generally feel like there's a kneejerk reaction from people (especially in the tech community) to be "PC compliant", at the level where you almost can't have any discourse because it's such a minefield (can't imagine a rational person whoms first intepretation of the tweets is "that's sexist" to be pleasant having a conversation with).

I almost feel in the minority (or just a silent one?), but I honestly don't care what kind of political views, personal preferences, outrageous statements or whatever problems a speaker at a conference might have, as long as he gives a good talk/presentation.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#30
post #3

Why is crybullying so rampant in the tech community?

It's almost entirely contained in the javascript community.

> It's almost entirely contained in the javascript community.

No it's not. Did you forget about the lambda conf already? it's everywhere in the Tech community, which is less and less about tech, and more and more about pushing some unrelated political drivel.

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