The Cancers In The Ruby Community • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#61

Post by clivestaples » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

txus wrote: post #53

clivestaples wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it really not occur to you that an overly-dramatic lament, with f-bombs and references to cancer, might give a bad impression? There is really very little excuse for Rubyists to have so little awareness, especially if they hope to overcome the stigma they are so worried about...

I'm really proud that so far no one has argued about any point I make in the article, but rather about the "cancer" reference and the swearing at the end. I guess that means I happened to write a pretty damn good article.

I believe there are plenty of problems with the points of view expressed in your original post. Not the least of which is that the Rails community was built with carefully crafted factional mentality. People called it "opinionated" software and if you didn't like it, well, "F*ck you."

This is how Rails was marketed, by splitting people into camps: Us (cool, indie hackers) vs. Them (corporate stiffs). Fervent conflict was intentionally built into the Rails culture from the very start and complaining about it at this point seems slightly after the fact.

Which leads me to my next issue: the Pareto rule. This seems like a silly thing to be complaining about because it's also the reason that there are four revisions of the Rails book and countless other money-makers (books, confs, Peepcodes, etc).

I'm sure you can see why congratulating yourself may seem a little arrogant and perhaps give people the wrong impression of your "cancer-ridden" community.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#62

Post by chromatic » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #17

GussyGusGus wrote: post #2

All three of those things are merely symptoms of the real problem: a lack of professionalism.

Please. Professionalism is what is killing great languages like C# and decent languages like Java. It is just an excuse for those in suits to look down on the rest of who create software because we fucking like it, in a way we like, rather than in a way that doesn't threaten them.

Professionalism is what is killing great languages like C# and decent languages like Java.

How so?

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#63

Post by petercooper » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #50

petercooper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a crass, and inaccurate, generalization.

... Yet there are a few people who agreed and think the same way as he is...

There are people who think those of certain races and genders typically act in a certain way too.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#64

Post by petercooper » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 8:16 PM UTC

nupark2 wrote: post #44

petercooper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a crass, and inaccurate, generalization.

Now, I'm not equipped to perform a statistically valid sampling of all conference talks, but pervasive anecdotal evidence lends credence to this notion. Specifically, this comes to mind: http://lifehacker.com/5859392/swearing-to-make-your-point-a-... As well as this: http://www.zedshaw.com.sharedcopy.com/rants/51489cec9386f7c1... And this: http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/15-potty-mouths There are more, but I…

Even thirty more examples would not neccessarily mean Rubyists are "often" like this. There are tens of thousands of them.

If ruby-talk, #ruby-lang, ruby-core, and Ruby conference talks were typically littered with swearing, there'd be a point. As it is, it's a generalisation formed off the back of a handful of cases. Stereotyping, if you will.

I've been covering the news in the Ruby world for about 6 years now, almost full time. People are inventing these silly stereotypes as a way to discredit the language and it's users, it's not based in reality.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#65

Post by petercooper » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 8:27 PM UTC

nupark2 wrote: post #47

petercooper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some bits from DHH about this: https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/statuses/1631100714 http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/42-we-need-both-eng...

"Professional to me is facade, fake sincerity, political correctness, not offending anyone, and everything else that makes life lifeless." Which only goes to support the notion that much of Ruby's community has issues from the top down. We're speaking of computer science, in which objective, rational analysis leads to correct answers -- not appeals to emotion and an almost religious acceptance of poor solutions. For…

I agree, I think DHH's statements were bizarre. They seemed to assume a sort of binary idea of "professional." You were either an anal retentive, by the book pedantic clock puncher or you were a fun loving rock star. The truth is there's a wide gamut and I think it's great for people to be "professional" without going to some sort of IBM-style extreme.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#66

Post by Spakman » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 1:13 PM UTC

pluies_public wrote: post #9

Interesting article, though the point could have been carried across just as well without all this motherflippin' swearing.

To everyone who is offended (or even just somehow unhappy/less convinced) by swearing, I strongly suggest not living in Scotland.

Here, "fuck"/"fucking" is often a filler word and "cunt" can be a friendly way to start a sentence or refer to your friends.

I don't get offended by any words or sayings, only by their intent.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#67

Post by cafard » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 5:46 PM UTC

I agree that "cancer" is over the top.

I would also say that you are probably better off with the Pareto rule, unless ability and industry are evenly distributed within the community.

(I speak as someone who uses Perl and Python for most of his scripting needs, by the way, and is definitely not part of the Ruby community.)

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#68

Post by ccashell » Wed, Apr 18, 2012, 1:41 AM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #65

nupark2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Professional to me is facade, fake sincerity, political correctness, not offending anyone, and everything else that makes life lifeless." Which only goes to support the notion that much of Ruby's community has issues from the top down. We're speaking of computer science, in which objective, rational analysis leads to correct answers -- not appeals to emotion and an almost religious acceptance of poor solutions. For…

I agree, I think DHH's statements were bizarre. They seemed to assume a sort of binary idea of "professional." You were either an anal retentive, by the book pedantic clock puncher or you were a fun loving rock star. The truth is there's a wide gamut and I think it's great for people to be "professional" without going to some sort of IBM-style extreme.

Times change. IBM-style "professional" is not the "anal retentive, by the book pedantic clock puncher" you might think. I worked there over 10 years ago, and we had no written dress code, flex-time scheduling, remote work, etc. The building I worked in had a 9 hole putt-putt course outside it, with foosball tables in a couple of the stairway landings.

Interesting how long we can hold on to perceptions from the past, even when they've been wrong for over a decade.

(I'm not implying that I'm disagreeing with you, in fact I think this shows that even what people think of as "pedantic clock puncher" and "fun loving rock star" from the outside is often very different on the inside.