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Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

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Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#32

I get that this is important to the Lisp crew, but is this at all relevant to the general audience of HN? What's the takeaway: avoid Closure because of one drama? Rich is right about everything? Copmuters are terrible?

I know nothing about Clojure but I'm always interested to read how open source maintainers interact with their community.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#33
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but only when the "attack" is within civil bounds, which the original blog post crossed( ). Otherwise you create a situation where people can attack people while hiding behind the claim they are attacking idea. It doesn't help conversation to support saying Fuck Feminism, but I have no beef with Feminists. I believe the original post that Rich Hickey is responding to was more a misguided attempt at humor and…

> I believe the original post that Rich Hickey is responding to was more a misguided attempt at humor and being provocative than an actual serious attack. Really? It seemed very earnest--jerkish, but earnest--to me.

Passages like this made me think the author's intent wasn't totally earnest, but going for melodramatic effect.

Now that the party is over and sunrise begins to reveal the plastic fairy lights and overdone makeup, I begin to question my life as well as the values that I am looking for within it.

And the opening was just shock value, or an emotional outburst, not that he hates and wants to move on.

...Fuck Clojure. There I've said it and God it feels good.

More misguided than malicious, which is how I would interpret it if the intent was purely earnest.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#34
post #8
post #7

I've read the original article and, to be quite honest, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. The action items seemed to have very little to do with the rest of the rant. I actually read the response first and the weird thing is: I couldn't really tell you what exactly the response is replying to. I feel like the whole thing is a huge amount of verbiage expressing frustration and broken motive…

To me the original article read as an expression of frustration - the sort of feelings that are easy to understand but hurtful and frankly stupid to put out in public.

The comparison to a relationship with a girl out of your league really makes him come off as a bit of a twat straight off the bat.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#35
post #23
post #7

I've read the original article and, to be quite honest, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. The action items seemed to have very little to do with the rest of the rant. I actually read the response first and the weird thing is: I couldn't really tell you what exactly the response is replying to. I feel like the whole thing is a huge amount of verbiage expressing frustration and broken motive…

>, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. In the poorly written Chris Zheng rant, there was a link to a more mature blog post by Eric Normand.[1] (It would have been better use of Rich Hickey's time to ignore CZ and respond to Eric, but alas.) In any case, CZ is upset that Cognitec drives the evolution of Clojure and its libraries more than the community outside of Cognitec . E.g. one of his fr…

mainstream

That's a weasel-word. For all we know, you could be using it as a synonym for a programming language community that's controlled by a corporation. Then your whole argument would be a tautology.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#36
After reading the original article and Hickey's response, I'm significantly less sympathetic to Hickey.

Here's the question: would Rock Hickey be Rich Hickey without Clojure? Would Cogitech exist without Clojure?

I understand both sides. I know the frustration of living with someone's arbitrary decisions. I also know the frustration of getting nothing but attacks from something I have worked hard to give away.

But Hickey has a higher standard here. He's gotten a lot more from the community than he admits in his response. It reads like he wants sympathy for all he has missed ot given away because of his work on Clojure. That's not a good response.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#37
post #23
post #7

I've read the original article and, to be quite honest, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. The action items seemed to have very little to do with the rest of the rant. I actually read the response first and the weird thing is: I couldn't really tell you what exactly the response is replying to. I feel like the whole thing is a huge amount of verbiage expressing frustration and broken motive…

>, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. In the poorly written Chris Zheng rant, there was a link to a more mature blog post by Eric Normand.[1] (It would have been better use of Rich Hickey's time to ignore CZ and respond to Eric, but alas.) In any case, CZ is upset that Cognitec drives the evolution of Clojure and its libraries more than the community outside of Cognitec . E.g. one of his fr…

Rust is extremely community driven. The main team does work and had input. But they respond to community requests with an openness and a speed that is rare.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#38
post #16

I get that this is important to the Lisp crew, but is this at all relevant to the general audience of HN? What's the takeaway: avoid Closure because of one drama? Rich is right about everything? Copmuters are terrible?

My takeaway is treat people well, appreciate the community you choose to participate in, spend reflecting on your role within it and whether it's a good fit for you any longer, and recognize that if it isn't, that it's okay to move on. But again, treat people well.

And acknowledge when you are getting things from the community that you couldn't get otherwise.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, couldn't actually determine what point it was trying to make. In the poorly written Chris Zheng rant, there was a link to a more mature blog post by Eric Normand.[1] (It would have been better use of Rich Hickey's time to ignore CZ and respond to Eric, but alas.) In any case, CZ is upset that Cognitec drives the evolution of Clojure and its libraries more than the community outside of Cognitec . E.g. one of his fr…

Ruby is an example for sure, Haskell is another.

I don't know if it has changed recently, but for many years the core team for Ruby were all Japanese, and most of their conversations were in Japanese, and so almost nobody in the wider Ruby / Rails community had any visibility or influence on the language's development.

Re: Rich Hickey's response to “On whose authority?”

#40
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby is an example for sure, Haskell is another.

I don't know if it has changed recently, but for many years the core team for Ruby were all Japanese, and most of their conversations were in Japanese, and so almost nobody in the wider Ruby / Rails community had any visibility or influence on the language's development.

Right, but that is just the language and VM implementation. The most important libraries in Ruby are not written by the core team who supports the VM.
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