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In defence of Douglas Crockford

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Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#161

Post by 35bge57dtjku »

tamana wrote: post #83
unimpressive wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.

When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.

I think the disconnect is that the vast majority of people, regardless of gender, do not consider these things to be marginalizing anyone. Why you can't see that and why you want to patrol for everything that only superficially resembles that is puzzling. When the number of people who are complaining about these "normal" things is about 1 in 10,000, it should make you stop and think. Are you really an early adopter of significantly better social norms and a heroic defender of the chronically marginalized, people who are so downtrodden that 99% of them don't see or don't have the energy to complain along with you? Or, are you just the crackpot on the street with the sign saying, "The end is near," whom people walk more quickly just to get past?

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#162

Post by stdbrouw »

Natsu wrote: post #118
whorleater wrote: post #12

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…

That said, from your very link I find this: " douglascrockford commented on Feb 21, 2011 I am sorry I hurt your feelings." I'll take someone who realizes they made a mistake and apologizes for it any day over someone who seeks to get rid of all the people they don't like.

That's pretty clearly ironic, though.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#163

Post by [deleted] »

whorleater wrote: post #39
ageofwant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My goodness, a respected dev dares to defend his philosophy and implementation and is vilified for being "abrasive" ? JSLint has never not been pedantic, that is why you use it. "You can write all the crappy code you want. I don't care, because you don't work for me. The purpose of JSLint is not to make you feel good about your bad choices. It is to help you conform to a more reliable subset of the language."

As someone that has very little involvement in the JS community, Crockford definitely comes off as abrasive in that issue. He could've just as easily said "scope confusion is an issue in JS, I don't see a reason to implement this" instead of calling someone's decision stupid. Is it bad he's abrasive? Not particularly, any undergrad worth their salt would've come across a professor who's abrasive in college. Abrasiven…

[deleted]

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#164

Post by mpweiher »

whorleater wrote: post #39
ageofwant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My goodness, a respected dev dares to defend his philosophy and implementation and is vilified for being "abrasive" ? JSLint has never not been pedantic, that is why you use it. "You can write all the crappy code you want. I don't care, because you don't work for me. The purpose of JSLint is not to make you feel good about your bad choices. It is to help you conform to a more reliable subset of the language."

As someone that has very little involvement in the JS community, Crockford definitely comes off as abrasive in that issue. He could've just as easily said "scope confusion is an issue in JS, I don't see a reason to implement this" instead of calling someone's decision stupid. Is it bad he's abrasive? Not particularly, any undergrad worth their salt would've come across a professor who's abrasive in college. Abrasiven…

But that seems to still assume this "abrasiveness" is a bad thing.

I find it much nicer and respectful than the passive-aggressive weasel-wordishness so common now.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#166

Post by Brakenshire »

mpweiher wrote: post #164
whorleater wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that has very little involvement in the JS community, Crockford definitely comes off as abrasive in that issue. He could've just as easily said "scope confusion is an issue in JS, I don't see a reason to implement this" instead of calling someone's decision stupid. Is it bad he's abrasive? Not particularly, any undergrad worth their salt would've come across a professor who's abrasive in college. Abrasiven…

But that seems to still assume this "abrasiveness" is a bad thing. I find it much nicer and respectful than the passive-aggressive weasel-wordishness so common now.

> But that seems to still assume this "abrasiveness" is a bad thing.

The commenter literally says "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..."

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#167

Post by justaaron »

cheez wrote: post #121
eli wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea. The conference organizers said people privately voiced concerns and other speakers threatened to pull out over his presence. I was addressing the parent comment's point about inclusiveness in general.

As it looks now, the people who voiced concerns and threatened to pull out were the same person.

which begs the questions: 1) whom 2) why

and it's rather "put-up or shut-up" time, I'd say.

I've never heard of this conference. I've read Crockfords books, and while any given person on earth may be a total bear to deal with, I'm not buying this greasy smarmy "he'd been uninvited for undisclosed reasons but we'll imply lot's of socially-disapproved-of reasons without confirming nor denying any of them"

what a kafka-esque load of nonsense.

the conference organizers are in the wrong and are doing further damage with every greasy fart they let out by way of explanation.

disgusting.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#168

Post by 10938101 »

tamana wrote: post #83
unimpressive wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.

When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.

If you wrote some software instead of talking, like Grace Hopper, Barbara Liskov and thousands of others, people would respect you automatically in this space.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#169

Post by madeofpalk »

Inconel wrote: post #157
madeofpalk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've kind of just resolved your concerns yourself. > The problem is that there is no way for the person affected to receive "justice", "fairness", or "a day in court". Of course there is. There's 'private arbitration' - just resolve the matters yourself like regular people do. Then then, if the victim feels particularly damaged, there's the courts. > Crockford might just ignore this--it's probably the best course o…

Does "private arbitration" require money? I don't know anything about Mr. Crockford's financial situation but, and this is purely from a self interest perspective, I um, don't have much money to adjudicate such a matter using arbitrators. This is what makes these kind of public accusations so troubling for me. If I happened to find myself on the receiving end of these kind of accusations I would have essentially no r…

Sorry - I put "private arbitration" in scare quotes because I didn't mean the formal sense where you have an impartial third-party arbitrator to help resolve the dispute - I just meant they can resolve whatever disputes there might be privately.

It was probably a poor choice of words.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#170

Post by teacup50 »

jacalata wrote: post #149
lake99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby? Not as far as I know. Matz rejected the Contributor Covenant, and instated the PostgreSQL CoC. Maybe you meant Ruby On Rails? They have adopted the Contributor Covenant.

Some people appear to feel that any code of conduct is evidence of toxic SJW takeover.

Well, it is. They're the ones that push them through. It's classic bureaucratic maneuvering: it gives you a political hammer from which you can then further cement a position of authority by leveraging the threat of official censure.

See also the expansion of Title IX and the resulting chill on campus speech.

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