Crockford • Hacker News Board

Re: Crockford

#101

Post by dodyg » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 7:35 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #100

dodyg wrote: post #47

First they came for Brendan Eich and I did not speak out because I was pro gay marriage. Then they came for Douglas Crockford and I did not speak out because I did not attend JavaScript conferences. Then they came for me—and it did not matter because I am a C# programmer.

Cute. However conflating or equating what Douglas Crockford has done with Brendan Eich is in my estimation unreasonable. As far as anyone can tell, at worst Crockford has a conversational style that isn't excessively concerned with political correctness or charm. He used words like "gonads" and "promiscuous" in a way that can be misconstrued. At worst, Brendan Eich can be accused of working to actively work against t…

Gay marriage was illegal in the US until last year. His position was not a fringe position. I am glad marriage equality comes to the US but if we start prosecuting people for their political beliefs, things are going to get ugly real quick. The tide of political direction can turn on a dime.

How about marijuana legalization? It's coming to all of the US states sooner or later. Let's start making a list of people who are against it so we can start a revenge hit later.

Re: Crockford

#102

Post by sjwright » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 8:31 AM UTC

dodyg wrote: post #101

sjwright wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute. However conflating or equating what Douglas Crockford has done with Brendan Eich is in my estimation unreasonable. As far as anyone can tell, at worst Crockford has a conversational style that isn't excessively concerned with political correctness or charm. He used words like "gonads" and "promiscuous" in a way that can be misconstrued. At worst, Brendan Eich can be accused of working to actively work against t…

Gay marriage was illegal in the US until last year. His position was not a fringe position. I am glad marriage equality comes to the US but if we start prosecuting people for their political beliefs, things are going to get ugly real quick. The tide of political direction can turn on a dime. How about marijuana legalization? It's coming to all of the US states sooner or later. Let's start making a list of people who…

I completely agree with you. I'm just saying the two controversies, on a relative basis, aren't in the same order of magnitude.

Re: Crockford

#103

Post by rkapsoro » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 1:49 PM UTC

A key pillar of today's identity politics is a default state of victimhood in a zero-sum world where a crass rubric of privilege is the only determinant of one's outcome.

Sadly, when people (are made to) believe they are victims, almost any amount of egregious behavior opens up for them.

We should not quietly tolerate puritanical bullying behavior from the far left any more than we did that from the far right.

Re: Crockford

#104

Post by dodyg » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #102

dodyg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gay marriage was illegal in the US until last year. His position was not a fringe position. I am glad marriage equality comes to the US but if we start prosecuting people for their political beliefs, things are going to get ugly real quick. The tide of political direction can turn on a dime. How about marijuana legalization? It's coming to all of the US states sooner or later. Let's start making a list of people who…

I completely agree with you. I'm just saying the two controversies, on a relative basis, aren't in the same order of magnitude.

Got it.

I don't understand how the word promiscuous become such a toxic word even in the context of human relationship. We are several years into the era of Tinder and other hookup apps and people are still freaking out with the concept.

Re: Crockford

#105

Post by sctb » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

sebringj wrote: post #74

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"spazz" is no better.

ok, please give me a fucking suggestion that isn't offensive, you ninny poo baby

Please stop. We ban accounts that continue to comment like this.

Re: Crockford

#106

Post by mrpsbrk » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

A point i didn't see mentioned is that the talk about "having the balls" is all about the fear-of-monads being overblown and unjustified, and in this context making unfunny jokes about overblown and unjustified bravado conveys a point -- and does so in a way that no amount of explaining that "it's not so bad really" would. I actually think saying he was being exclusionary in this instance is downright bad faith.

Re: Crockford

#107

Post by mrpsbrk » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 9:27 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #98

barrkel wrote: post #7

Mr. Straw is part of the problem, imo. There's a lawful vs chaotic dichotomy going on - Mr. Straw started out lawful conservative, but then found out about a different set of laws he could leverage into a position of power. It's a similar but different power leverage being exercised elsewhere by a new generation. Feeling excluded by more usual measures like achievement or talent, they've taken to using social taboos…

>he very lack of talent that people who use social manoeuvres to get to the top means the groups they dominate won't be very important or effective You'd be surprised. I grew up in the USSR. People you've just described were everywhere where there was a slight resemblance of power. You don't need to be very effective when you can just stomp your competition into the ground and if you can do this then you are very imp…

"It's not that power corrupts, but that power attracts the corruptible", said mr. Frank Herbert...

Re: Crockford

#108

Post by mrpsbrk » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #3

It seems pretty clear that this is more about a clique that is attacking Mr Crockford in order to obtain more power for themselves. They can now say - "Hey - you have to listen to us! We Matter! Look at what we forced the Nodevember people to do. We're a moral authority!". To go from complaining about a lack of diversity, to basically saying 'you screwed up and now need to prove your love to us by uninviting this JS…

Totally agreed. Also feel this feeling of "moral superiority" is at play even when the complainers are not in a position to exert any power -- otherwise worthless people throwing mud just to feel worthy. That probably counts as practice for when they can get the upper hand.

Re: Crockford

#109

Post by mafro » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 9:46 AM UTC

torgoguys wrote: post #21

Yeah, I don't get it either. FWIW, and why I'm commenting, "promiscuity" with regards to computer communications isn't even new with Crockford. It's the exact correct term used in the industry to refer to a mode you can put network cards into if you want to inspect all traffic that reaches it, rather than just traffic indented for your workstation [0]. It goes back at least to the early 1990s when I first encountered…

This has been bothering me since the beginning of this whole shit-show too.

Re: Crockford

#110

Post by tajen » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 10:24 AM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #29

It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct and the idea that the developer community should take the goal of inclusivity and sensitivity seriously. There is no question that our community too often can feel hostile to those who aren't white hetero men, and that is a real problem. On the other hand, there is no questio…

> There is no question that our community too often can feel hostile to those who aren't white hetero men.

Why this assumption? All the information about programming is on websites that are accessible to everyone independently on their gender and race. I've witnessed very inclusive initiatives by most people, white or not. If we mostly get white males, does it make our websites racist? Is StackOverflow, Eclipse, SublimeText or Chrome racist? Is selling software online only available to white people?

I'd argue if we mostly get white males, it's a coincidence. Most people I talk with about a well-paying, international, career in IT tell me "I could never do that, it's too nerdy". Maybe they didn't have the support by their parents, maybe they didn't have enough Legos when they were children, maybe they identify as girls-who-don't-belong-in-front-of-a-computer. Say what you want, programming is hard and proportions don't make us guilty by default: Other people just chose not to do it.

Also, I've personally tried. I've brought my goddaughter into fablabs, industries, research centers, showed her Mythbusters, bought her a cubic meter of Legos, talked with passion about science in general, it cost me hundreds. She still identifies as a prince-charming girl. My sister on the other hand got into engineering, and she regrets having made this choice "based on people who told her they need more women in engineering", "because she would have preferred organizing cultural events". I've also taught a 15-year-old arabic immigrant person on how to program. He touched said goddaughter sexually.

Proportions don't make white males guilty. Programming was welcoming to diversity until diversity media made it a minefield. People just rarely had a preference for programming.