What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project • Hacker News Board

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#691

Post by m0wfo » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

Kroem3r wrote: post #661

solox3 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fine line between being critics (constructive) and being assholes (destructive). When hiring, be sure to differentiate the two.

My experience and belief is different: It's clear and obvious where the line is. People who provide constructive criticism in such a way that you can tolerate repeated critiques are strikingly different than people who are assholes under cover of providing constructive criticism.

And the most constructive criticism here would be a pull request :)

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#692

Post by rektide » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:25 PM UTC

dos1 wrote: post #537

Dylan16807 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry what? If you even consider saying that code is like an existing project but not good, or implying that a piece of code is badly written, you're an asshole!? Don't you think you're taking this a bit far?

He didn't merely say the project "wasn't good", he implied it in a snarky, very unconstructive way. Here's his quote from twitter: > Ever wanted to make sed or grep worse? http://github.com/harthur/replace In the world I live in, that's called being an asshole. Look, I'm not saying these guys should apologize (in fact, if this is how they apologize it's probably best they don't), I'm simply stating that they're dicks…

The effort you spend denouncing them- 116 words v.s. less than 160 characters total in theirs- makes you look like a tosser.

Their actions weren't advisable by any measure, but you've certainly demonstrated a willingness to make up your mind about them, based off a number of extremely extremely short pithy statements. Dial down your indignation, friend: help us get rid of this reek.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#693

Post by jumby » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:27 PM UTC

Seriously, i dont know what everyone is getting worked up about. Some wannabe smarty pants said something mean on the internets. How is that different than any other day?

Steve Klabnik: what exactly is his claim to fame [2]? Lets all mock him for reinventing the wheel with 'pomodoro'. "Messes with your hosts file" and run some crap ruby daemon on :80 so you can't browse the web for some number of minutes? WTF: it's called a proxy people or iptables. Why reinvent the wheel? OHHHH and a big no no here: shelling out to the system. LOL, the irony [1]. I need HIGH PERFORMANCE on everything I do including a local webserver. Gosh.

Corey Haines: huh? some software trainer who has written a well known anything? His github is less than inspiring.

Some other ruby people: big whoop. Lets see their githubs and then we can all point fingers.

[1] https://github.com/steveklabnik/pomodoro/blob/master/lib/pom... [2] https://github.com/steveklabnik/bring_back_snowman

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#694

Post by mnicole » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:33 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #268

benatkin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's autism that must run rampant and that it's underdiagnosed partly because people have called it Asperger's which doesn't seem as serious. With the new version of the DSM this won't happen as often.

There is a huge gulf between Asperger's and full blown autism. People with Aspergers are "normal" people in the sense that they are generally capable of looking after themselves, communicating and working normal jobs etc People will full Autism have severely limited communication skills (often no spoken or written language skills at all beyond repeating a handful of phrases) and require a significant amount of assist…

There are still people that fall under the high-functioning category that have a hard time taking care of themselves and holding down jobs. Just because you check some boxes doesn't mean you check them all, and I'm glad the DSM is removing a term that tries to generalize a subset.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#695

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:35 PM UTC

cygx wrote: post #673

Dylan16807 wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you're linking a specific post, go for it. I've made mistakes. But I'm going to hope it's not just a post you disagree with. Just like I hope you don't call code bad because it uses OTB or omits semicolons. It should be failing to solve the problem it sets out to solve, and in an interesting manner. (Note: I have not looked at the code tweeted about.) Edit: Wait how did THIS post get downvoted? I can under…

Don't know, but possibly because you're derailing the discussion. The outrage is not about constructive (or even unconstructive) criticism of the code itself (which appears to be fine): At least one of the guys ridiculed the author and questioned her competence for the sole reason of implementing a subset of the features of GNU find+sed on top of Node.js.

Well then maybe those people should have been mentioned in the article. When I see top-level comments I don't realize I have to read hundreds of comments they are replying to without using the reply button. I was only talking about the examples given up front, which insulted the code, not the author.

Thank you for the useful info.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#696

Post by chaostheory » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #626

chaostheory wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulting someone's code is like insulting someone's kid. The guy probably feels he put a lot of thought and hard work into it. It's not that hard to give constructive feedback as opposed to being an asshole.

> "Insulting someone's code is like insulting someone's kid." You are way too attached to your code. . . . What these guys said was still extremely rude.

I didn't come up with that quote. I believe someone famish like Martin Fowler did a few years back.

> You are way too attached to your code.

For most people this is subconscious. If you're not, good for you.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#697

Post by KorvinSzanto » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:44 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #200

Heather, I agree that people are unnecessarily rude to you. Don't sob. Your code shows you are already a more capable programmer than most of the ones I interview. No one has given you a clear answer as to why your code is reinventing the wheel, so allow me to do it politely. I took every single example from your README, and show you below how everything can be reimplemented with sed -r (nice extended regex syntax, m…

I would rewrite these functions for fun, even with an understanding of them. It doesn't matter if the end result is useful or not, we're programmers, we enjoy programming, not using. Of course that's to a point; time spent making something useful that's fun to make is more rewarding to most.

I'm just making the point that it's not just about learning, it's about writing the code. If you're the type of programmer that is only looking for a means to an end, this isn't for you, but if you're like me, the fun is in figuring it out yourself without the help of libraries.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#698

Post by awj » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:45 PM UTC

dos1 wrote: post #690

awj wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile calling people assholes and declaring that the reason is "in [their] personality" based on what they may have considered saying, that's perfectly ok? Have you really never made a comment without fully thinking out the ramifications, without missing some of the consequences, or just simply without really thinking period? People say shitty things sometimes, but labeling them as an asshole for all time based o…

Oh sure, I've made plenty of stupid comments, but that's not what these guys did. They picked a repo on Github that they thought was duplicating functionality in Unix (oh the horror!) and engaged in classic schoolyard bullying. Publicly shaming the code and the author, apparently to make themselves feel better and show the world how smart they were. And at the end of it, the apologies they issued after the internet t…

I can comfortably say, based on more than a few arguments and discussions, that Steve Klabnik is not a bully. This situation sucked all around for a lot of reasons, but "that's it, this guy is an asshole end of store" is a poor reaction to it.

If you want to judge a person with any degree of finality by one isolated incident that you barely were involved in, that's your prerogative. I think that speaks more about you than it does the person. Hopefully you'll give me some evidence that changes my mind, I'm at least still open to that.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#699

Post by doktrin » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:46 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #523

doktrin wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point. Once I read the names of those involved, I was a little taken aback for this very reason. Friends I respect think quite highly of Corey, for instance. Also worth noting, both [Steve and Corey] have published apologies on their own blogs. Both are worth reading.

Here's David Cramer's notpology: http://justcramer.com/2013/01/24/being-wrong-on-the-internet...

> notpology

That basically summed it up. I guess it's clear the 140 character limit was never the issue.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#700

Post by dos1 » Thu, Jan 24, 2013, 7:53 PM UTC

rektide wrote: post #692

dos1 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't merely say the project "wasn't good", he implied it in a snarky, very unconstructive way. Here's his quote from twitter: > Ever wanted to make sed or grep worse? http://github.com/harthur/replace In the world I live in, that's called being an asshole. Look, I'm not saying these guys should apologize (in fact, if this is how they apologize it's probably best they don't), I'm simply stating that they're dicks…

The effort you spend denouncing them- 116 words v.s. less than 160 characters total in theirs- makes you look like a tosser. Their actions weren't advisable by any measure, but you've certainly demonstrated a willingness to make up your mind about them, based off a number of extremely extremely short pithy statements. Dial down your indignation, friend: help us get rid of this reek.

> Dial down your indignation, friend: help us get rid of this reek.

I agree with you and gave you an upvote. Maybe my comments do make me look like a "tosser" - but these people were behaving like bullies, plain and simple. And man, I can't stand that shit. I see it every day. People will go out of their way to make others feel miserable. Or they use their power/standing/influence to pick a fight with someone weaker just because they can.