Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

thingist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 249 posts

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#201

Post by mcantor »

dexen wrote: post #46
edw519 wrote: post #36

Condescending feedback says more about the speaker than the listener. It is almost invariably about their own insecurity. This is true is almost all fields of endeavor, not just programming. Just a few examples of my own: Insecure bridge player: The queen of spades was a stupid play. What's wrong with you? Excellent bridge player: The queen of spades would have been a great play against a 4/2 split. But since you had…

Each of the `Excellent xxx' response you give differs in two important hitches from the `Insecure xxx': 1) it requires much common context, understanding, experience. Everybody will understand a ``this sucks'' response, regardless of the reasoning behind it being clear. Understanding a, and building better solution on, an involved response requires common understanding, common experience, between the parties of commu…

But what's the point of making a response that everyone understands if you're not really saying anything?

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#202

Post by count »

discreteevent wrote: post #197
count wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, here! Learning someething, and selling (for money, or otherwise) the not-acceptable-for-use side effect of your learning something as a 'finished' product can be dangerous to the end customer. Not being able to skateboard well means you're going to fall and bust your knees or elbows or face. It's dangerous to you, and potentially comedic to your compatriots. Publishing a website full of XSS/SQLI problems and st…

I think you make a good point and I really don't mean to be critical but the pedant in me must point out that the correct phrase is "hear hear" ....or should I say: WTF man! English is your native tounge. What the hell are you doing writing if its clear that you don't even read??? How could "here here" make any sense as a phrase? And if it doesn't make any sense why don't you take the f ing finger out and google it!!…

I just started recently. My initial impulse was 'THIS!' and nothing more, but I figured that'd get me nothing but downvotes, instead of furthering the conversation.

I can take harsh criticism, as long as it's not ad hominem. You, for instance, are absolutely correct, and that is a pretty embarrassing mistake. Thank you for pointing it out.

I'd fix it, but it's past the edit window.

PS: Mr. Grammar Nazi, it's 'tongue' :)

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#203

Post by nhangen »

Alex3917 wrote: post #105
nhangen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment: "The problem is that when people start mouthing off about factual issues they don't know anything about they can cause a lot of damage, so crushing them is often a necessity." Is exactly the type of thing that comes from the hive mind, and is why it's impossible to be a dissenter. It's usually "you don't know what you are talking about," followed by bashing until the person takes their ball and goes hom…

"...bashing until the person takes their ball and goes home." And that's often a good outcome. Consider for example this article published recently by a Connecticut state senator on why she wants to put people in jail for having 'fake weed'. http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/fake-pot-a-new-threat-to... The entire article was riddled with sloppy thinking, and thoroughly plagiarized, so I got all of reddit to utterly…

Since when does being wrong revoke someone's right to express said wrong opinion?

This: "I got all of reddit to utterly destroy her" is the exact type of mentality that myself, and as I estimate, the OP, have a problem with.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#204

Post by count »

agentultra wrote: post #137
count wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, here! Learning someething, and selling (for money, or otherwise) the not-acceptable-for-use side effect of your learning something as a 'finished' product can be dangerous to the end customer. Not being able to skateboard well means you're going to fall and bust your knees or elbows or face. It's dangerous to you, and potentially comedic to your compatriots. Publishing a website full of XSS/SQLI problems and st…

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about though. I believe a lot of this bad advice stems from thie belief that "other people write bad software." When you run into bugs day in and out, it's easy to reinforce this belief. Afterall, how can someone who claims to have all this experience and knowledge make such an obvious mistake? They're paid a salary and millions of people trust their software! I could do…

I empathize with what you are saying, but I don't agree.

I think it's crucial to recognize the difference between what I'm talking about, and what happens when people with experience make mistakes. Environment matters, tremendously. If you're an amateur hack, selling your 3rd rate skills to customers who don't know any better, and you're lack of capability is hurting people because your software is being exploited, the response SHOULD be swift, and harsh.

If you are working within a framework of extensive testing, analysis, and basic rigor, and a mistake makes it through, and you add that case to your testing and learn from it, the response should be moderated significantly.

Just because someone with 2 months of PHP experience CAN stand up a web service and take credit cards over the internet and become the next web success story, doesn't mean that they should. I believe this industry has gotten to the point where there needs to be minimum table stakes for entry - you can't just find somebody who'll design and sign off on a house for you for super cheap because they're new. There's a reason for that.

Until IT moves out of the wild wild west, though, it needs to be policed like the wild wild west - shoot the idiots that threaten the town.

Sorry that's kind of rambling, but I think it mostly gets my point across?

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#205

Post by count »

danenania wrote: post #115
count wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, here! Learning someething, and selling (for money, or otherwise) the not-acceptable-for-use side effect of your learning something as a 'finished' product can be dangerous to the end customer. Not being able to skateboard well means you're going to fall and bust your knees or elbows or face. It's dangerous to you, and potentially comedic to your compatriots. Publishing a website full of XSS/SQLI problems and st…

Not to diminish the importance of doing good work, but the reality is that knowledge and expertise are part of a continuum and even well-respected experts can easily make mistakes. If you're trying to make a living, you have to attempt to sell yourself at whatever level you're at, then work to keep improving. It's the customer's responsibility to do due diligence and discover potentially critical gaps in expertise, n…

I fully agree with you - everybody has to start somewhere, and nobody gets ahead just doing things they're 100% comfortable with.

That said, if you're going to give the impression that you can swim in the deep end, you need to be fully prepared to suffer the blowback if it's discovered that you actually can't swim in the deep end.

In response to the due diligence - this sort of goes down a rathole, but the industry as a whole is lacking serious professionalism and credibility standards (certifications don't count, in general). There is no professional liability (aside from personal name besmirching - hence the harsh criticism and feedback). If you get hired in 2011 to do a site for someone, and your database stores passwords in plaintext - in my mind, that's a fundamental enough error that you SHOULD be able to be held professionally and legally liable.

I'll be the first to admit - the problem with this is the question of where do you draw the line? What SHOULD everybody know AT MINIMUM before they can commercially sell services like that? I hate the idea of licensing as much as anybody else, but our only recourse is 'self-policing' - hence the harsh criticism and attacks.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#206

Post by count »

swix wrote: post #111
count wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, here! Learning someething, and selling (for money, or otherwise) the not-acceptable-for-use side effect of your learning something as a 'finished' product can be dangerous to the end customer. Not being able to skateboard well means you're going to fall and bust your knees or elbows or face. It's dangerous to you, and potentially comedic to your compatriots. Publishing a website full of XSS/SQLI problems and st…

You probably have one of the most poisonous perspectives one can have in this type of thing, this is exactly why the world sucks. There _NEVER_ is a reason to give "harsh" feedback, go read some kevin pollak or study psychology, humans are not "dogs" giving harsh or stupid feedback wont change the broken product. Offer your help, "Holy shit dude you have a XSS/SQLI in there, lets fix that up before you get in trouble…

I spend many, many hours helping people learn, and not by pushing them off the edges of buildings.

Even google has had XSS style problems - that shit is HARD. One form field having filtering issues is one thing, a whole site of problems with absolutely no effort put in to mitigate what are, effectively, known issues, is an entirely different thing.

If you're not worried about anything security related on a public website in 2011, you don't deserve to live on the public internet, and should jump.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#207

Post by wturner »

I really enjoyed this post, and skateboarding has been one of my greatest teachers in life (which probably isn't saying much). I do believe in Machiavellian criticism, but progressive Machiavellian criticism with the intend of doing whatever you're focused on better.Not for the sake of the critic feeding their own ego, although the two can mutually interact. :)

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#208

Post by reinhardt »

jhamburger wrote: post #175
AndyKelley wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding dense... So did he imply that he was betting $60 million on the flip of a coin? I don't get why he would do that?

In the world of high-stakes gamblers, you're judged more on how much you're willing to gamble than how much $ you're actually worth. So that was an FU on multiple levels.

Given that typically "how much you're willing to gamble" Would be fun to see the guy's reaction.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#209

Post by reinhardt »

cabalamat wrote: post #80
MrJagil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback = insecurity"? And I mean that sincerely. I have been thinking about this for a long time now, and I just cannot come up with any supporting evidence to explain the corelation. It might sound like a stupid request, but I think it is a hard argument to make totally water proof.

> Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback = insecurity"? If someone has low status, this may cause them to criticise others, in an effort to cause the others to have even lower social status.

This may explain only the one direction of the equivalences: "low status" => "insecurity" => "condescending feedback", not the inverse. We can all come up with examples of high status individuals demonstrating condescending behaviour.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#210

Post by reinhardt »

timknauf wrote: post #146
HSO wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

judging from media reports/biographies, a lot of our "tech heroes" would then have counted as "insecure"?! don't know about that. i've gotten to know some people who i consider brilliant or at least very, very good at what they do and, judging from my own small sample, they've been all over the place in terms of manners/considerateness. i don't think this is a valid classification scheme...

You can be very, very good at what you do and still be insecure.

This sounds almost like a tautology or a "no true Scotsman" argument. If "insecure" "condescending" by definition or "well, if he's bad mannered he can't be really secure", there's not much to argue.
Post reply on HN